Yearning, Evermore : Hope
by freshneverfrozen
Summary: A vaguely standalone "sequel" to the Bear-Man's Daughter. If it's plot you're after instead of sexy feels, copious proportions of suspended disbelief, and gratuitous amounts of angst, you would be better served to skedaddle. Orla, survivor of BotFA and poster child for bad luck, rekindles life & love, plays charades, goes fishing for bargemen, and hikes a skirt or two.
1. Chapter 1

**Yearning, Evermore: Hope**

 **Chapter One**

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 _"Young of face, old of heart, you were the spring._

 _O sweet daughter from the valley Anduin._

 _Friend, kin, company, you've come now in woe!_

 _Where has gone your smile, that happy, sunny glow?_

 _Dark became that night when what died was your light._

 _Lost, lost! Out it went, a candle what once was bright._

 _Come, O Daughter, to the river to wash it all away -_

 _Away the gloom, away the dark, away this heavy sorrow!_

 _Tom'll have you sing again, come a sunlit morrow."_

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Bard the bowman, bargeman, King of Dale, had _dreams_. Weeks of fresh nightmares too soon became months of repeated, restless reminders of a costly victory that woke him still in the night, jerking his sweat-cold body up from a bed too soft for comfort. Faster than he wished, those months passed into a year, until the Battle of the Five Armies was soon becoming a memory. New seasons came and went, a city and its people rebuilding amidst the ticking of time, quicker than its king's mind could keep up. Yet, no matter the days that slipped past, no matter the weeks nor the months, the dreams never left him.

And in all those dreams, be they of bloody horrors or the breathless, bone-tired elation of a battle won, Bard saw many faces.

Faces of dwarves, elves, men, some fallen, others alive and recovered in the very city where he himself now dwelled. Some faces he had seen die that day, cut down, carried off, or dashed into the ground by monsters he hoped never to see again. But never once did he see _her_ face. Not in his sleep. Not in his dreams. There were no lucid flashes of ringlet curls, no cold, argent eyes to haunt his mind in the silent hours of the night.

Not once.

No, the King of Dale was visited by many ghosts in the night, but hers was never among them.

She, the fabled Beorn's daughter, a skin-changer by nature and an infuriatingly mute transient by choice, had not been in his dreams over the many nights since he had seen her last – broken, beaten, the light in her ripped away through tongue and heart. In his waking hours he could see her haggard face as clearly as if she were at his side; _think_ of her he did, and often. He thought of her bravery, other times of her foolishness. He recalled her fierceness – the constant, numb rage that had rolled off of her from her eyes to the white-knuckled grip of her petite hands. Even now, with a crown upon his head and servants at his beck and call, he wondered still if he had failed her. Theirs had been a tentative friendship, their tempers short and their tolerance for one another even shorter, but it had been a fast one.

Think on her as he might, it mattered little, for at night she vanished all over again, as gone from his world as if she had never entered it to begin with.

And in truth, Bard and his new city were all the emptier for it.

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 _"Might I heal, might I help? Old Tom will try._

 _But up with you child! Up, does old Tom say._

 _He'll make you laugh, he'll have to have his way._

 _Goldberry sings, the Shire May Pole's raised._

 _There are yet tears to wash in the river._

 _Time now for silence to end, my good child._

 _Don't be shy, springtime's to fix broken things."_

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It was Tilda who came running, her chestnut braids whipping out behind her and coming undone in her hurry. She flung herself at her father's hips, casting him off balance with such absurd gracelessness that Bard had to laugh. Once his feet had been steadier, able to hold their place no matter how his barge had pitched and rocked. He was not suited for the life of a king, though his daughters certainly appreciated the benefits. He thought as much as his chuckles fell away, his hand coming to rest at the nape of his youngest daughter's neck. Sure enough, the blue ribbon woven through her hair was slipping loose and one good tug had it pulled free.

Smiling, the ribbon dangling between his fingers, he began to tease her, "Hmm, Sigrid will have to –"

He was cut off before a single syllable further could be uttered. Tilda's pale eyes were as round as saucers, her cheeks flushed from running, and she sputtered out, "I saw her! Father, she was in the market!"

Laughing, Bard could only guess. "Your sister?"

"Orla!"

Orla. The name itself did not strike Bard particularly hard. He had been asked more times than he could count about the woman. His children had been fond of her, his daughters in particular, no matter how uneasy the thought had made him. What _did_ drive the air from his gut was the news that she had been spotted – and in Dale no less. The ribbon in his hand nearly fell away, his grip suddenly going too slack to hold it. What to make of this news? _Surely, she jests._ But no, Tilda for all her youth would not jest about such things, not when she had waited for a week on end as her father scoured the battlefield for a body that could not be found. Six long seasons had gone by and she had watched too many times as her father's eyes glanced back to every golden head that entered his line of sight as if to make sure that he had not seen who he hoped to see.

 _Her_ name, a sweet and unfitting name, suddenly felt heavy and foreign on his lips.

"Orla." It was hardly a sound at all but Tilda nodded all the same.

"Bain was there, though he says he didn't see her. In the market, by the baker's stall. I swear it, Father, she was there! She wore a yellow shall, I saw it when she turned."

 _No_ , decided Bard quickly. _It cannot be so._ And it couldn't, it truly couldn't. Orla, if she yet lived, would not return to Dale. Not this close to the Mountain. Not so close to where the one she had hated above all others dwelled in his stone tomb. Not so close to where so much blood had been shed, where her worst nightmares had come into fruition.

He shook his head. "Tilda –"

"I _saw_ her," the girl implored. "What if she's lost? What if she can't find us? Please, Father, come and look with me. What harm will it do to look?"

 _What harm? What harm other than more lost sleep? Or if I do not, then a daughter who refuses to speak to me for a week?_

It would be a lie to say he was not sorely tempted to follow his youngest, if only to escape the monotony of listening to an advisor read over trading contracts and letters and never-ending requests…but it would also be a lie to claim that a part of him, somewhere buried deep behind his heart, was not afraid of the disappointment he knew awaited him if he did accompany Tilda.

" _Please_ , Papa," she begged and Bard knew in that moment that he had, for lack of a better term, been 'had.'

He would go with Tilda and he would look. He would look for lank curls and cold, dead eyes and scared flesh and when he did not find those things, he would face the disappointment and remember the woman as he so chose.

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 _"Iarwain Ben-adar, Forn, Orald, and Tom._

 _I am all these things and these things are me._

 _I do remember the first of it all._

 _Might I recall the last, sad or merry?_

 _Tom would remember you, Orla, dear friend._

 _Your hair of gold and those eyes of silver._

 _His friend Withywindle has washed you well._

 _Goldberry's med'cines have healed woes and scars._

 _Sing for me now, whisper in this old ear._

 _The world's been a song short, or so I hear._

 _Tom has returned what was taken from you._

 _But your heart is yours, he cannot heal it._

 _Gone remains what is gone, life goes on still."_

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Bard had not found the one for whom he searched. Instead, there had been a woman like her, though her hair had been a shade fairer, her eyes warm and brown. The stranger had appeared so aghast when he had unthinkingly reached out to grab her, having looked on wide-eyed from behind as she had shopped. But one glance at the young woman's face had shown Bard the truth and he had spent the next several minutes apologizing, a blushing girl-child hiding at his heel.

Perhaps though, the trouble had been worth it, as for the first time, he had dreamed of her.

Orla, the skin-changer, the one who life had failed, was at his side not long after sleep had claimed him. She had stood beside him atop Ravenhill, a valley of dead below. He could see the dirty, decaying bodies writhing like worms amidst a sea of blood-blackened snow and dirt. At his shoulder, the woman wept. Her hard eyes would not look at him no matter how he called her name. They wrenched closed instead and in the pale morning sunlight, tears left a glistening trail in their wake down her gaunt cheeks.

All that had been left for him to do was place a single hand atop her frail shoulder. The gesture was as familiar in his dream as it had once been all those months ago. And just as she had all those months ago, she stilled under his touch, calming until finally her quaking shoulders ceased their spasming and her head tilted up to look at him.

 _I lost_ , wept her reddened eyes as she peered up at him, _I have_ _ **lost**_ _._

And she had. Physically, emotionally, all the scars of that accompanied war, scars a woman should not have to bare. It was a pain made all the deeper by the senselessness of it all. Bard knew, for he had watched the world come apart in front of her. He had seen fate cast her to the ground and grind its indiscriminate boot heel into her.

The scars she should have borne – did surely bear – were suddenly there upon her face, as though he simply had not noticed them when she first looked up at him. Dotted around her mouth, ruining the pink flesh of her lips was where a vicious black thread had once sewn them together. Bard had cut that thread free himself and a sudden fear gripped him that if he did not concentrate, did not focus all his mind to looking at her now, he would plummet back to that night when he and her father had found her in the gross aftermath of the Pale Orc's cruelty.

More damning still, Bard knew that if he were to reach out and touch her cheek and beckon her _speak_ that she could not, for the worst of Azog's sins against her could not been seen at a glance.

It was too much to stand there atop that cursed hill. His failure struck him too sharply, piercing his chest like an arrow and ripping into him.

Bard spun away; he wanted to look anywhere but at her, see anything, anyone but her. After all this time, he could not face her. With his back to all the death that lay behind there in the valley, Bard took one step and then another, his feet growing too heavy to flee. Then suddenly, her hands where on him. He felt her pulling at his shoulders and arms, frantic now that he had cast away his gaze. Her nails scraped at the leather and cloth on his back, the fingers of both hands closed around one of his forearms and tried to wrench him around. But he dared not look – he did not wish to see her silent screams for him, her pleas to him.

His apologies echoed through the cold November air, ghosting out from his mouth as he cried out, his strong voice breaking as he struggled to push the woman away.

Just as his voice began to grow hoarse from his sorrows, the barrage ceased and he was free to stumble to the ground. And when he turned, he found that Orla was gone without a trace. Not even a foot print lay in the snow to mark the struggle she had waged against him. The air was empty and when he looked down from the hill to search for her, he found that the pile of bodies below had grown ever larger.

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 **Thanks for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

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 _"Me o my, my o me! O sweet daughter fair!_

 _Thanks to ol' Tom, thanks to ol' Withy, you dare now to dare!_

 _Up you've crawled, up you've climbed, off those raw-skinned knees_

 _To the river, to the grove, to and fro through the trees._

 _Me o my, my o me! O sweet daughter kind!_

 _Where go you now we wonder? Where goes your mending mind?_

 _To the Mountain, to the vale, to the Long Lake far away?_

 _Me o my, my o me! O sweet daughter gay!_

 _Where'er you go, Tom and Berry will miss you ever' day!_

 _Down the road, a hand to hold, a heart to heal yours better._

 _Happy thoughts go with you now, 'til your hearts at last be together."_

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The summer was fine weather for fishing and farming and Dale had reaped the benefits of both. Bard could not claim all the credit for the budding (and in some cases renewed) trade relations with the both the elves of Mirkwood and the dwarves of Erebor. Salted fish, dwarven wares, and more were being sent down both the River Running and the Forest River. Dale was growing, a grand sight compared to the empty ruins it had been not two years before.

Three representatives of Dain Ironfoot had only just been shooed away from the dining table and out the door, leaving Bard to collapse gratefully atop a chair that was decidedly _not_ located in the throne room. His was indeed a modest thrown room to be sure, and it was generally tolerable but after three days of dealing with – and more horrifyingly yet, _housing_ – dwarven emissaries and all the guards who came with them, he needed a moment's rest lest he lose his mind.

His son, however, had other ideas. Bain had an uncanny knack for sniffing his father out whenever the desire struck the boy and today would apparently be no different. No sooner had Bard gotten good and comfortable than did Bain sweep into the room, his recently deepened voice shaking the king out of a fast approaching nap.

"Father!"

Bard found he could only grunt in response.

"You're…napping?"

"Resting."

"Napping," repeated the young man. "You promised to go riding today. Or have you forgotten?"

"Let me sleep on it." Bard managed to crack his eyes open wide enough to scowl, if only half-heartedly.

Bain, however, was undeterred, propping up atop the desk in front of his father. "Was it not last night that your exact words were, ' _If it's a choice of riding with my son or picking new table clothes with my eldest, riding it shall be_.'"

Groaning, Bard recalled that he had indeed made such an absurd declaration the night before at dinner.

Grinning proudly, Bain went on, "If you think riding's too strenuous for you, I _suppose_ I can tell Sigrid you'll join her with seamstress."

Bard had always been a man who preferred blatant threats to veiled ones and where his son had developed an aptitude for such underhanded treachery as was just demonstrated, Bard hadn't the faintest. In truth, the ride was a necessary one, if only for the chance to speak with the townspeople - those who were friends and neighbors, people Bard had pledged to himself not to ignore. He stood from the chair with stretch, his bones popping too loudly for his liking.

"You have the horses saddled, I assume."

Bain laughed. "An hour ago."

The young man was up from the desk with a bound and his father at his heels shortly thereafter. As promised the horses were saddled and ready. Despite having descended from a somewhat long line of lakemen, father and son were both strong riders, weaving in and out of the throngs of people with ease. Every so often they stopped at a stall or a shop to speak with those gathered round. People were happy. They were recovered. Their bellies were full and their homes warm at night. It was what Bard wanted to hear – news that made the softening of the calluses on his hands worth it. By late morning, he had promised to accompany a local troop of fisherman on the water the following week, have dinner with the tailor's family two Sundays out, and a whole host of other interactions for which he was infinitely more excited than he was for the papers and affairs that awaited him in his office.

"Shall we ride to the lake?" Bain asked when they had reached the edge of town.

Bard reached down to stroke the dappled neck of his mare, his shoulders shrugging as he replied, "That would depend on whether my son thinks he can keep up all the way to the lake."

Nothing more than an ensuing smile was needed and with a click of Bard's tongue, the mare surged forward and he pulled ahead.

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It was by no means late in the afternoon when Bard finally returned to his duties, though judging by the harrowed look on his advisor's face, one would have thought he had been missing for days.

"Gullastan," Bard greeted the man awaiting him. The fellow looked closer to the part of a grizzled war veteran than an advisor – he was actually a reformed mercenary and enforcer for the former Master of Lake Town – and the fact that something had left Gullastan of all people looking so ruffled was enough in and of itself to cause Bard concern.

The old advisor scratched at his chin before he finally spoke. "Sir, we have visitors."

Bard frowned, though thankfully he did not have to wait for elaboration.

"They were unexpected, though…it would have been unwise to turn them away." Gullastan spun on his toe and waved his King on. "Through here, sir."

What Bard had expected to see when he entered the little hall that passed for a throne room, he wasn't entirely sure but it certainly was not the man who was currently taking up the vast majority of space in the room.

Stopping in his tracks, Bard called in surprise, "Beorn?"

Seven plus feet of hulking bear-man turned to scowl at him. If Beorn had picked up a comb or bothered to shave over the last year or so, Bard could not tell it. The wild black wreath of his hair and beard looked every bit as untamed as it had in the midst of battle. There was no softening of his features in familiarity as Bard greeted him, only a slight curling of his upper lip.

"Bargeman," grunted the Beorning by way of greeting.

Even Gullastan, staunch, loyal Gullastan, did not bother to correct the man's choice of words.

Bard was not fool enough to believe that a man such as Beorn would come all the way from his Carrock for a visit. His back straightening, his shoulders drawing back, Bard began, "What brings you –"

A massive hand was cast into the air, waving his words away. "That spawn of mine wanted to visit. Thought to come all this way herself…"

The room did not, in fact, start to spin upon hearing the man's words, though perhaps it should have. _It can't be._ Surely, he had misheard. Beorn had only one child to his knowledge and she was gone, long gone. _She cannot have returned. Not here. She cannot be here._

Her name slipped from his lips before he could catch it, so quiet not even the advisor at his side heard him.

"…Showed up one morn at the Hall. Bah! Blasted creature knew I couldn't turn her away. A year she's been gone and ten before that!"

"Beorn," Bard croaked out but the chieftain paid him no mind. "Master Beorn!" He tried again, louder. Blessedly, the giant quit his growling long enough to glower at the bowman.

He snapped, which for a normal man would have sounded like a shout, "She flittered off somewhere down the hall. Go find her if it suits you, bargeman-king!"

 _This_ was a dream. It surely had to be. For several long moments, Bard hesitated, his feet seemingly locked into the ground. It took him one long, worried look at his advisor's equally perturbed face to convince himself that he was certainly awake. "Gullastan," he began hoarsely, "show Master Beorn to the table and see him fed."

The Beorning snorted. "Bread, mind you! Keep your fish and meat."

It was not until Gullastan, shrunken beside the giant skin-changer, had shown the grumbling guest from the hall that Bard found he was finally able to move. One step and then another, slowly toward the far door. It did not surprise him that the woman – if she was truly present – had wondered off. She had had little care for formality when he had known her, much to his secret delight, particularly regarding the Elvenking, and had been constantly on the prowl, rarely settling down long enough to breathe. When he reached the corridor off the main hall, it appeared suspiciously longer than he remembered it. Searching it and all its rooms suddenly seemed like a daunting undertaking, one that would take far, far too long.

He was dreaming. He would not believe otherwise.

But his disbelief did not stop him from calling out her name.

Once, twice, and then a third time as he drifted down the hall. Where would she be? She was loathe to be under a roof in all the time he had known her. A small patio and garden lay ahead. It was a place he rarely visited; his daughters kept it up, nursing flowers and plants they had never previously had the chance to grow.

 _Perhaps_ …

But Orla had not been the type of woman who liked a garden. Gardens were pretty things and Bard suspected her liking for such things had left her long ago. _She would not_ –

But before he could finish the thought, there she was.

She emerged from the patio, her small form appearing in the doorway like a ghost, silent and almost spectral. Bard's steps drew to a sudden halt, his eyes unbelieving of what stood before them.

One year and two hundred and thirteen days since he had seen her last lying upon a healer's cot. The gauntness he remembered in her face was gone, her cheeks now full, sunny where her color had once been sallow. The wild, spring-tight curls that had surrounded her head, as wreathlike as her father's, were pulled now away from her face to reveal a short, squared jaw he did not recall noticing before. The figure that had grown frailer from injury of both mind and body looked healthy now, clad not in rags, but in mismatched colors of bright yellow and blue from her leggings to the tunic she wore.

And her eyes. Even from half a corridor's distance away, Bard could see that there was no blank chill to them. They were open and wide… _happy,_ he thought.

"My lady Orla," how could he possibly begin? His words caught in his throat, choked on a sudden wave of relief he had not expected. "You look…well."

She smiled at his words, simple though they were. A small grin, so discreet Bard would have missed it if his eyes had not been as sharp. Her eyes sparked, judging him quietly, intently.

"It's good to see you," he went on, his words suddenly tasting flat and insufficient.

Her head cocked, silently laughing, and before Bard knew it, she turned away and slipped back through doorway the way she had come. A fear took hold of him in that moment – a fear that he had been dreaming after all, that she was gone just like before. A king would not have rushed forward as Bard did, but a man certainly would have and he was, after all, but a man. A man desperate to _see_ the woman – the friend – who had saved not only him, but his children, who had been by his side the night he had braved the scorched remnants of Esgaroth to bring down Smaug the dragon.

As he reached the door, his boots slid against the stone floor, causing him to sling out a hand to catch the archway and steady himself while he looked out onto the small patio and the garden beyond.

 _Where is she? She was just here –_

The skin at the back of his neck prickled and from the corner of his eye he spotted her, his racing heart calming as her shadow mingled with his. She was leaned against the wall, her feet kicked out and her hands clasped behind her back as though it was she who had been waiting all these months for _him_. That same small smile played at her lips as she watched him. His own eyes narrowed on her, momentarily piqued that after so long she apparently wished to _play_ with him. An odd thought struck him as his ire rose – Orla as she had been was quicker to rile into a fit of snarls and gesticulating fists than she had been to jest. The occasional glance here and there, certainly, a cocked brow or a tilt of her head as if to say, " _You've lost your mind, bargeman_."

No, Orla as he had known her had been badly broken.

This creature before him could have been a stranger if not for the look that haunted the depths of her eyes. He saw it now as he stood there looking at her – the remaining vestiges of a pain that had not in fact left her, no matter what the brief twinkling had implied when she had first laid eyes on him in the doorway. Hers were the eyes of an old woman, not one on the brink of thirty. He saw the same look in his own reflection and again in the eyes of those who had seen their homes, businesses, and loved ones fall to dragon fire. Once he would have sworn that the irises had been nearly black, so dark a grey they had been, now though, a gleam of silver shown through the cloudy sheen of that residual ache. It peeked hopefully through all the cloudiness, a shine, like a reflection cast back of him of something that might vanish if he was not careful enough.

The scars around her mouth and cheek were nearly invisible in the warm light, lessened further as that smile of hers began to grow. Finally, after a long minute of mutual observance, her fair head bobbed toward him in hello.

 _Bard,_ the gesture spoke, _my friend._ Her eyes suddenly lit up, twinkling once more as she took in his appearance, far finer than he had looked the last time. _You're looking… ever so kingly._

And then Bard laughed. He threw his head back all of a sudden, dark hair spilling out past the collar of his coat, and he _laughed_. Until his breath caught in his chest and left him nearly wheezing. One hand swiped at his mouth as if to wipe away the grin there and he shook his head.

"Welcome back, my friend," he said with a dry chuckle. His reached for her, his hand falling atop a round shoulder and squeezing as though he had done the same every day since he'd last seen her. "You have been missed."

 _I was busy!_ Her eyes flashed and a moment later her own, much smaller hand came to rest atop his, warm against his skin.

"I did not lie when I said you look well," the hand beneath hers did not loosen its grip as he spoke, "Where ever you've been, it's treated you better than I had hoped."

It was too much to ask where that was; he didn't have the heart, not when he knew she was incapable of answering. As healed as she appeared, some wounds, Bard knew, were forever.

 _Indeed,_ she nodded and something in her face lightened at the thought. A moment later, she slipped her hand from over his and moved instead to his side, her fingers curling at his elbow to draw him along.

 _You saw Beorn?_ She cast her head back toward the direction of the main hall, her brow drooping in reference to the man with whom she had arrived.

"Your father is a hard man to miss. Though," Bard's words and steps faltered and it took Orla's gentle hand to coax him along again, "I did not expect either of you."

She snorted, her button nose wrinkling. Glancing back up at him and then toward the garden, she appeared to hint that she had something to show him, or so he gathered. Orla's muteness had once been a frustrating personal choice on her part – Bard suspected it was done just to spite others, though after meeting Beorn, he had wondered if perhaps her silence had rather been the result of being weary of speaking over the boisterous man. Now, however, her silence was a necessity and he was left only to glean his best guess from various glances and gazes. Regardless, he followed her, if only to see where she led.

As they walked, countless questions flooded his mind, questions he could not ask. Where had she been? How had she been? Why had she left when there were those who she knew would look for her? Did she know that Thorin Oakenshield, the bane of her existence, lay dead in a mountain just outside the city the wall? Or that the hobbit she had fretted so over had returned to his home in the Shire, far away?

Yet, they walked on in silence. Bard had not realized it would be so maddening.

The quiet was broken when approaching footfalls emerged from just around the corner. Orla drew to a stop, pulling Bard with her. Her hands fell from his arm and for just a moment, he felt a pang of regret strike his heart, only to be stamped back down as he looked to her questioningly.

Orla's lips quirked and she dropped her head low, her eyes cast up at him through a fan of pale lashes. _There is someone I wish for you to meet._

That moment, appearing from the left arm of the garden, a new figure stepped into view. It was a boy, Bard realized, not much younger than his own son. The boy's honey-brown hair was curly and fell just past his chin. It was a strong chin for a child his age and it led up to an angular jaw. The gentle set of his mouth was familiar, too wide for his face, and his eyes too small.

"Hello," the child said. He came closer and as the boy spoke, the bowman could not help but to note the resemblance the child bore to the woman at his side. "You are King Bard?"

"That is what some insist on calling me, yes." Bard replied, half laughing. "Though just 'Bard' will do."

Beside him, Orla cleared her throat and a single eyebrow cocked expectantly as she looked at the boy. The child seemed to remember himself, because a moment later, he introduced himself.

"My name is Grimbeorn."

"Grimbeorn? Your brother?" Bard turned to the woman, only to see that she had looked away.

"Her son," Grimbeorn explained, "You're a friend of Orla's, then? Papa, well, grandfather, I mean, he told me."

 _Son? Of all the things in the world, she is a mother?_ Never had Orla made a single mention of a child. Often to Bard's amusement, she had been painfully awkward around his own children – kind, though aloof. If she had a husband, he knew nothing of it, although to be fair, he had never discussed his deceased wife with her either. It was not a topic that had ever entered into his mind when she was present.

If the boy was her son, then that likely explained where she had been all this time. She had gone back to her family, though that did not lend any reason as to why she had abandoned her father after the battle. Beorn had searched alongside Bard when the last goblin had retreated and neither of them had found a trace of the woman. A twinge of wounded pride stung the man suddenly but in his heart, Bard knew it was unfair. As a father, he knew from experience that the first thoughts he had had after the battle had been of his family. If this boy had been the cause of Orla's desertion, he might understand.

But the boy called his mother by her name, just as Orla was wont to address Beorn by his. Orla's relationship with her father was a rocky one and even Bard did not know the extent of it. Whatever the feeling between mother and son, it was not particularly familial at present. They glanced at one another as strangers did, uncertain and uncomfortable.

It took Bard a moment to shake off his curiosity and set it aside. Warmly, he finally replied, "You and your mother are both welcome here, young master Grimbeorn. I will have to introduce you to my son. A boy should have company his own age."

At the mention of another boy his age, Grimbeorn smiled cheerfully, as though the prospect of being in a strange city had suddenly become much less boring. He nodded his head and then looked sheepishly to his mother.

"May I go find Papa?" he asked.

Orla fidgeted and to Bard it looked as though she was entirely unused to being asked by others for permission to do anything. No less awkward than her son had been, she bobbed her head and gave him a gentle, if somewhat stifled, wave goodbye. Free now, Grimbeorn sped away, far quicker than any other child of common lineage could have moved and was gone from the patio by the time Bard had turned to watch him leave.

When the child had gone, Bard rounded on Orla once more.

"A son?" he began, "And your father? Is there a company of dwarves somewhere that I should know about? A troop of elves?"

His words were harsher than he had meant for them to sound and Orla blushed under them, glancing away. He could read well enough the look, even if she did not wish for him to see it and an unwelcome twinge of shame from his words came over him. She had wanted to see _him_. He was, in all likelihood, one of her few friends left in the world. She had walked away from Thorin and Company and their little hobbit and, even if she remained on sound terms with them, they had since scattered to the wind.

Grumbling, Bard let out a sigh of apology.

"Sigrid and Tilda will be excited to see you, at least –"

At his words, Orla scoffed, the sound drawing his gaze down to hers just as her eyes blazed up to meet his. _At least? At least! I will leave this very instant if you wish it, Bargeman!_

With a stomp of her foot, she began to turn from him, tossing her hair moodily over her shoulder as she walked.

 _There_ was the Orla he knew. The one who's temper could be provoked with a single poorly-chosen word.

He had forgotten how damned irritating it was.

"Bah!" Bard rumbled after her. "You know that's not what I meant, woman, now stop this."

She scowled at him over her shoulder and did not slow her retreat towards the door. The months had dulled the memories of his near constant frustration with her tetchiness but now those same feelings came roiling back so strongly that he actually pursued her. Before, he was usually content to let her sulk, having neither the time nor the desire to deal with her. Now, however, he was too angry at the sudden change of tone in their reunion _not_ to go after her.

"Must you be so contrary after all this time?" he called to her.

By the time she had reached the door, Bard had caught her, his longs legs needing only one stride for every two of hers so that even in the wake of her blustery charge, he reached her quickly.

"Woman, what I meant – "

He reached for her as he spoke and though he had intended to catch her wrist, it was her hand his fingers closed around. His words were culled the moment he felt her fingers squeeze his in response and he looked down, turning her loose just as quickly as he had grabbed her. She, too, ceased her stomping and looked up to face him.

He had expected to see a scowl or something equally blistering, so when he noted the immensely pleased grin stretched over her lips, his explanation for his choice of words fell away.

For the second time that day, she was teasing him. Like a child, she beamed at him, far too pleased with herself at having caused him no small amount of distress.

 _I know what you meant to say,_ she smiled and an abrupt chuckle erupted from Bard's throat entirely unbidden. He did not know this woman at all, he realized as he took in that foreign grin. This was someone new. Whoever had healed her had not stopped with the wounds of her flesh. They had made her smile, had dug it up and carved it anew from the ash of what had been left after the battle. And whoever they were, whatever magic had been at work, there on the little patio, Bard found that he was eternally grateful to them.

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 **Hope you enjoyed it! Best to all of you!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

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A week passed and to the bargeman's consternation, he had seen remarkably little of the woman. He was kept busy with his duties and she was satisfied to keep her distance from him as he did so. What time she had was given to his daughters in particular; her own son had become bosom pals with Bain and was proving a rarity himself. For his part, Beorn simply prowled about, seemingly discontent with city life. Strangely, since the Bear-Man's arrival, visitors had become increasingly scarce and those who did appear, stayed only the shortest amount of time required to accomplish their business.

It was only in the late evenings that Bard found any company in the woman's presence. The second night of her stay, she had drifted into the room that served in an official capacity as his study, though in his opinion, its unofficial title was that of ' _prison_.' She had joined him without so much as a knock at the door, slipping silently in and taking a seat across the room nearest the small window. For as many hours as he had poured over various papers, she had remained with him, staring out into the night. It did not escape him that the window opened directly in view of the Lonely Mountain; he himself had spent too many minutes looking at the jagged peak that lay just beyond the city walls.

The third night, she had gone immediately to the window but had closed it without hesitation, casting only a single brief, apologetic glance to Bard for shutting out the sole source of fresh air. He had said nothing. Instead, she had come to him and peered over his shoulder for the next two hours, occasionally making a nuisance of herself by pulling out parchments here and there or rummaging through the sparse contents of the desk.

The forth night had appeared as if were on course to go much the same way, save that the moment she had renewed her search through his things, as though she thought she might find something new and intriguing, Bard had swatted her away.

"Orla!" he had scolded her, his teeth grit in annoyance.

Appropriately chagrined, she'd shrugged an apology and drifted back toward the door. He had not wished her to leave but her tenderheartedness had led her to that conclusion regardless.

"You don't have to leave," Bard caught himself saying before she could exit. He leaned back in his chair and looked at her. "Are you not weary?"

But she had shook her head and glanced away toward the window. It was a fleeting look, but Bard had not missed it.

"It's the mountain, then?"

She had nodded and had not meet his eyes. It was that night when he had first understood the extent to which the ghosts of her past still preyed upon her. Behind the smiles and the well-meaning teasing, she was not healed, not even as much as he had first assumed. There, inside the city of Dale, she was surrounded by the familiar, both good and bad. There were those she knew, those she was fond of, and then there was that which had her up and prowling the halls at night. Bard suspected that her ghosts were not so very different from the ones which still woke him from his dreams.

So it was that, sitting down his quill, he had declared, "I think I've done enough for the evening. Gullastan can fend off anyone who finds a problem with it." He had stood from his chair, well aware of Orla's rapt attention. She had looked so surprised in the dim light of the room, and yet so very grateful.

"Will you walk with me?"

When she had all but sprinted to his side, he'd had his answer.

After that night, he had not seen her again in his study. She and her son had gone with his children to the market for the day before venturing to the lake where they'd apparently gone for a swim that had ended in Orla returning looking more like a swamp rat than any woman Bard recognized. The following days since then had left her pouting in bed with only the mildest of colds to blame.

It was well after dinner that Bard finally succeeded in tucking his youngest into bed and he headed straight for his own room with the immediate intention of finding some rest himself. His path took him past the quaint quarters the woman had been provided with and upon passing them, the last thing he had thought to hear was the echo of quiet sobbing. For several minutes he had wavered outside Orla's door, trapped there by concern and the overwhelming desire to fall into his own bed. If she were anyone else, he might have brushed he immediate concern away until the following morning but with Orla there would be no way to discuss the subject of her distress, not on the morrow, not ever.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Bard groaned inwardly before reaching out and rapping softly at the door. As gently as he could manage, he called to her through the solid wood. _Answer the door, woman, if I knock any louder your father will come running and I haven't the energy to flee._ At the thought, he cast a look back down the hallway toward the where Beorn was hopefully fast asleep. King or not, he wasn't entirely sure he could out run the Beorning long enough to explain what he was doing outside Orla's room late at night.

Through the door, he heard the muffled shuffling of bare feet and it was not long before the door cracked open and a red-eyed and weepy Orla peeked out at him through narrowed, glaring eyes. She sniffled once and whether it was from the cold or her crying, the man before her had no way of knowing.

"You've been crying." There wasn't really much else to say.

Orla opened the door marginally wider. _Perhaps_.

Shifting on his feet, Bard pressed on. "You've stopped now, then?"

 _Perhaps._ It was too much to hope she might aid him, for she merely continued to watch him, looking not so unlike a child who had been caught and was none too happy about it.

He cleared his throat and nodded, "Good. That's good." Sufficiently embarrassed enough for one night, he started to turn away, bidding her goodnight. It was only the creaking of her door that caused him to pause and look back. To his surprise, the door had not been pushed closed, but rather Orla had opened it and followed him out into the hallway. A man with more social graces might have looked away from her, dressed as she was in her night clothes; Bard for one was simply shocked to see her in anything outside breeches and an overlarge shirt. Glancing at him, no more aware of her attire than she was of her own skin, she looked suddenly afraid that he would leave her to her tears once more.

One small hand gestured him back to her and against his better judgement, Bard went.

 _Walk with me_?

His aching back and shoulders protested the request but he did not have the heart to deny her. Motioning her forward, she fell in step at his side, and he resigned himself to pushing away all hopes for sleep in the near future. His dreams could wait. They were hardly better company, anyway.

If they walked for an hour or three, Bard did not know. Nothing was said, not from him, certainly not from her. In the soundless halls, her presence beside him proved welcome. A glance at her every now and again from the corner of his eye caught her wiping a tear or two from her cheek, only to have her steal a quick look back up at him and then away again. Eventually, his eyes strayed past her face and to the softness of her hair. It hardly fell past her shoulders, its mass far greater than its length, but the touch of golden curls against the pale cream of her gown nearly had his hand creeping upward, if only to brush a stray lock or two away. The desire to do such a thing came from nowhere and if Orla noticed as he shook his head to chase away the thought, she did not show it. Neither did she seem to note the path his tired eyes took down the slope of her shoulder to her neck, trailing of their own accord to the curve of her breasts and waist.

Snatching one hand to his eyes, as though to scold himself for his own thoughts, Bard roughly massaged the skin there. The need for rest was getting the better of him clearly.

"It's getting late," he said softly, his tone suggesting they bring their wondering to a close. Orla nodded and looked about, searching for the correct way back. Had they been in a forest, he suspected she could navigate without map or guide but there surrounded by four walls, she looked positively lost. Bard showed her the way and when they reached her door, she caught his hand in hers. Her eyes found their way to his and in them he read her thanks. Her lips quirked softly and with one last little nod, she left him to a night of dreams that were not entirely unwelcome, regardless of what his waking mind made of them the morning after.

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It was five days later that Beorn announced his intention to leave. He undoubtedly felt he had humored his daughter enough and though his proclamation was harsh, his desire to return to his valley was genuine. The boy, too, seemed eager to escape Dale, his dislike of city-life rivaling that of his grandfather. New friends it seemed, were well and good but they were no replacement for wide open pastures and rushing streams. Orla took the news in stride; though given the look in her eyes, she still did not take kindly to the idea of going and coming at someone else's whim. In fact, Bard was not entirely sure she had not dismissed her father's notion altogether.

Bard himself, on the other hand, tried not to acknowledge the clenching of his chest at Beorn's declaration. He had known that Orla's stay would not be indefinite, particularly since she traveled with company. However, the thought of only a two weeks' worth of time to make up for nearly two years spent speculating set his mind on edge. Why he wanted more time, he could not explain, but he did and the matter was that simple.

Having been confronted with a side of the woman he had previously not been privy to, he found himself curiously attached to the prospect of reacquainting himself. Without question, there were times when Orla was every bit as vexing as he knew her to be but at other times, quieter times, there was a simplicity to her that Bard had not known she possessed. The most basic of things could bring a smile to her face when she thought no one was looking, from a stray gust of wind that carried with it the smell of earth and life to the sing-song ballad of a nearby bird. They were things that mostly would have gone unobserved by all but elven-kind but Orla noticed them and Bard, likewise, had noticed her doing so. Other times, there was a pervasive sadness that fell over her – most often when she caught a glimpse of the Lonely Mountain. And for the past two weeks, that sadness had begun to creep outward toward Bard as well.

Perhaps it should not have come as a surprise when that the same morning as her father had made his plans for their departure clear, Orla had conveniently slipped from under their very noses and _vanished_.

For all the time she had been in the city, Bard figured he could count the number of occasions she had ventured outside the walls on a single hand, if not one or two fingers. That observation alone was the reason for the fleeting moment of panic he'd felt when he had discovered that none in his household knew where Orla had disappeared to after breakfast. Beorn and his grandson remained present, though neither knew exactly to where the third skin-changer had wandered. Two years ago, Bard would have thought nothing of her disappearance, as she had done so frequently and with little regard to his or anyone else's feelings on the matter.

That habit, however, had led to a bad end.

"Girl'll not go far," Beorn assured Bard as though the older man had read the bowman's thoughts, "She's been broken of her wandering – for better or worse." The Beorning's sharp eyes had grown sad at the admission and behind the croak of his rumbling voice, a note of regret burned within his words.

The entirety of his reasons for wanting to find the little skin-changer were, for the most part, inexplicable to Bard himself. It would not be a lie to say he worried for her. _That_ was the reason he had tried to keep at the forefront of his mind; he refused to acknowledge any other explanation, never mind the fear that Orla might disappear from Dale – from him – unannounced, just leave behind those who cared for her on the off chance the fancy struck her.

 _Blighted woman_ , thought Bard once his overlarge guest had lumbered away. It was like dealing with a runaway child, only his children had better sense by far. _Where might she have gone?_ Both the garden and her room proved empty. The stables were out of the question, for Orla disliked horses nearly as much as she disliked goblins and other equally nasty things.

 _Perhaps the market, then_.

There were errands that needed to be done besides and not enough hours in the day to do them. Some of those things, tasks which could easily have been passed on to someone else, needed to be done in the city center. Hands to shake, notarized agreements to be dropped off, and the like. If it provided a convenient excuse to go have a look round for his missing and soon-to-depart friend, Bard made it a point not to notice such a coincidence. On his way out, he informed Gullastan at the door of his intended destination.

"Try not to send out a search party," he instructed, only half jesting.

Uneasy, having already insisted thrice on going with him, Gullastan offered a grudging grunt of acquiescence.

Bard, who fancied himself more a glorified mayor than a ruler, made his way through the city, nodding here, giving a quick hello there. The people were used to their leader walking their streets and he was well-loved for it. He'd not only fought for and with them, but he had sweated shoulder to shoulder at their sides as they had made their new home. All the rubble had long since been cleared away to make room for stalls and shops, potted plants and clothes lines. There remained traces of Esgaroth's practicality in the simplicity of the rebuilt homes, most of the tenants having made their previous livelihoods amidst clapboard and timber. Nevertheless, renewed trade had bestowed small touches of grandeur. Bard's eyes still had not adjusted to the abundance of color and gilding that was increasingly present everywhere he went – he secretly suspected they never would.

The market was disappointingly void of any misplaced Beornings and Bard's business could not be put off entirely. A short time later, his kingly duties performed, he milled about the crowd for a while longer. At a fruit stall, a bushel of green apples caught his eye and unthinkingly he purchased not one fruit but two, pocketing them before turning and heading in the direction of the city gate.

"Gentlemen," he greeted the guards as he passed, bound down the pathway away from the city. It was a short walk to the nearest bend in the river that ran from the Long Lake, no more than a mile or two. It was not long before he was in view of the bank, smooth black water stretching out over the distance until it emptied into the deep, dark cauldron of the lake. Just ahead, nestled in the bend of the river, Bard spotted a feminine figure seated at the edge, settled down among the pebbles and stones with her back to him.

All at once, he was thankful for the distance between them, as there was no way for her to hear the small, ghosted sigh that escaped him when he saw her. _So, she has not wandered away. There may be something to be said for a woman's changeability, after all._ He did not manage too many more steps before the woman in question turned. Her eyes found him and though the smile she graced him with was small, it did not go unappreciated.

He joined her by the water, tossing down an apple, where it landed with a soundless plop in her lap. Daintily, on the border of prissiness, she plucked it up and rubbed its shiny green surface against her shirt, cleaning away a smudge that wasn't there.

Suddenly, an alarming thought popped into the bowman's mind. _Can she eat it?_ He had not thought to consider any difficulties certain foods might pose. Frantically, his usual somberness tumbling away, he tried to recall if he'd seen her eat anything other than broths or soups.

"If you don't want – "

Before he could choke out the rest of the sentence, Orla's teeth were already breaking the crisp flesh of the apple and a moment later she was noisily chomping away. Her chewing paused briefly as she glanced up at him, no doubt catching the shine of relief behind his eyes.

 _What?_ She frowned, one cheek plump with an unswallowed bite. _What is it?_

Shaking not just his head but what felt like his whole body, Bard answered quickly, "Nothing. It's nothing."

Orla shrugged and resumed her nibbling. When he did not join her immediately, she stopped again and looked back up to him and then to her apple once more. Frowning, she extended the half-eaten fruit to him.

 _Have a bite if you really must._

"No. No, I have one myself."

As if to prove it, he fished into his pocket and drew out the second apple before settling down on the bank beside her. They ate in companionable silence, chucking the cores into the water when they had finished.

"Did you know," Bard began as he stretched back, "Sigrid suggested we put a bell on you?"

With a sideways glance, his dark eyes found the woman's, one corner of his lips creeping up. Orla snorted rudely and made a face, though half of it was hidden by the tumbling of hair.

 _Bells do not suit me._

The bowman could not help but chuckle in agreement. A moment passed and he had to force himself to look away, the sun shining too brightly against her hair and skin to keep his eyes on her. Clearing his throat, he added, "There's some appeal, in truth. At the very least we might keep track of you."

Orla hummed low in her throat before her lips cracked in an amused grin. _Why, Bargeman, were you worried?_

He could have answered her but, suddenly confronted with the very question that had lingered annoyingly in the back of his mind all day, he brushed any reply aside. The woman did not look away from him but continued to watch him intently, obviously expecting some sort of answer. When none came, she finally turned her eyes back to the water, her brow falling in disappointment. The look quickly faded, her hand flying out to motion to the lake a ways beyond. Far out in the center of that black water protruded a skeletal black wing that lay against the remains of a burnt tower. Thin, serpentine fingers fanned out at the wing's highest point, as though Death waved back at them from the grave, mocking them, a foul and ugly reminder.

 _He's still there._ Orla's grey eyes narrowed and her scarred upper-lip curled in loathing.

"No one goes near the remains," Bard explained. "They say it's haunted – by the dragon or his victims, no one knows."

Orla's scowl only deepened. _Or both._

 _Indeed,_ thought Bard. It was not something he wished to contemplate; he relived the night often enough in his dreams. Orla looked thoughtful, likely remembering the night they had both nearly died several times over. She had leapt with him from that lone standing tower across the water, landing in the frigid waters, icy from the cold autumn, and it had been Bard who had hauled her up and out onto the bank. She had been unresponsive, a gash at her temple from something that had struck her in the water. She had been a stranger then, but a stranger who had saved his children and braved the fires at his side, and in return, Bard had done what he could to save her. Wounded and with lungs filled with water, he'd pounded at her chest until, sputtering and choking, she had shuddered into consciousness long enough to glare spitefully at the mountain that had lain over his shoulder before tumbling into the blackness of exhaustion once more.

It was a dark memory, one Bard did not care for. He would not have mourned her if she had died that night; she would have been one more lost soul to add to the lists, a stranger to be remembered only with the masses of others.

So deep was he in his thoughts that he did not notice Orla as she stood. Her hands brushed against her bottom and legs, knocking away the few pebbles that clung to her. It was only when she nudged him with her foot that Bard was drawn from his reverie, taking her hand in his when she offered it to him to pull him to his feet. He was heavier than she had braced for and his weight pulled her forward, only for her to brush against his chest briefly. If she cared about the contact, she made no show it. Instead, she smiled brightly as she ran her hands down his arms, brushing away any bits of dirt and rock as she might do a child. As her fingers skimmed over his wrists and forearms, he noted that she was warmer than he had imagined she would be; for some reason, he had thought she would be cold to the touch, as if her characteristic aloofness somehow affected her body temperature. Never mind the many times she had stood at his side – some invisible distance had always remained between them; when he had touched her, it had been as a comrade and friend, not once anything more. But now she was warm, warmer than she should have been even with the summer sun beating down. Bard had never been one for the sunnier months; he liked a briskness to his air to keep his lungs and head clear. And Orla was much, much too warm for his liking.

Stepping out of her reach and batting her hands away with a grumble when they tried to follow him, he said the first thing that came to mind, something he had meant to suggest the week before.

"It's a shame your father cannot be persuaded to stay until November. There is to be a festival celebrating the fall of Smaug and," he paused, his voice growing softer, "in remembrance of what was lost."

Orla stilled in her primping and her head turned to look over her shoulder, past the city and past the short stretch of plains, to the mountain that lay beyond. Though Bard did not know it, Orla had lost more that day than he guessed. Her most hated enemy had not made it back to that kingdom of his, but neither had the nephews who had defended him. It was the loss of the youngest Durin that haunted her eyes, his ghost that drew her gaze time and again to the gates of Erebor and the mountain that housed his tomb.

When she faced Bard again, her previous grin had disappeared, gone as if he had only imagined it to begin with, and she shook her head sadly.

 _I do not wish to remember. I wish to forget._

 _But why the mountain?_ He pondered as he watched her. She looked so forlorn, so heart-wrenchingly lost. Certainly, the Lonely Mountain remained a dark, looming shadow, the events which had unfolded around it too recent for anyone in Dale to forget. Yet something came over the woman each and every time she looked in that direction, something that caused the faintest of trembling in her hands and made her eyes tug closed as if she were physically fighting back the memories that assailed her.

"Orla," Bard took a step forward and when she did not look at him, he placed his hands atop her shoulders, ignoring the warmth that radiated up from her. He shook her once, gently, until she acknowledged him.

"If you wish it, we will go. Dain will allow it; he'll not deny the king who controls his best trading post. Whatever is there, it is best to face it," his fingers tightened, the last words hardly more than a whisper, "if _you_ wish it."

The grey of her eyes all but swallowed the pinprick irises as she stared back at him. She looked at him as though she thought him mad. The faintest quake trembled through her body but Bard did not loosen his grip. Again, her head snapped back to the mountain. Beneath his hands, the muscles of her shoulders grew taunt and he suddenly thought she might bolt from him. But she did not. She exhaled slowly, lowly, her breath dancing over the fingertips of one hand.

Finally, she looked back at him.

And when she nodded, Bard felt as though a second, equally brutal battle had just been won.

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	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

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A day was all that was needed to send word ahead to Erebor and the Dwarf Lord within of Bard's visit. The King of Dale had made it clear that a former member of Thorin and Company wished to pay overdue final respects to those three members who had been lost; he had assured Dain in his letter that they would linger in the dwarven kingdom no longer than necessary. Orla had two remaining days before she and her family planned to depart. It was time enough.

With a small entourage of guards and his advisor, Bard traveled with Orla to the gates of Erebor. She made not a sound, neither did she look at him at all during the journey to the mountain. All the way, her small hands fisted at the reins of the mare she rode until her knuckles went white. Before them, the Lonely Mountain jutted up from the earth, its massive, rocky arms outstretched as though it waited for them. The black peak high above was stark and smattered with snow even in the dead of summer, not unlike a crown.

The closer they drew to the gates, the tenser Orla grew. To Bard's eye, it looked as if the ride from Dale had aged her a solid decade, her head hanging low, the skin around of her eyes having grown dark from the mounting stress that no doubt weighed down on her. Bard could see it in her hands and in the sharpness of her breath. Heedless of those who traveled with them, he edged his own horse closer to hers. He called to her and she stirred at the sound of his rough voice, her eyes flashing over to his.

"Say your goodbyes to whatever lays in that mountain," Bard told her, "be it Thorin Oakenshield or the troubles that drove you away two years ago."

Orla paled and in her gaze, the bowman saw a fear he had not expected from one such as her.

"Swear it!" he urged, not moving his dark eyes from her when she shied from him.

Her lips pressed thin as she flinched from his sudden harshness but a moment later, having steeled herself with a final look up at the mountain, she nodded slowly.

 _I will try._

And like that, Bard believed her.

A short time later, the massive gates of Erebor were opened, and a full guard of armored dwarves sent out to greet them. Bard and his advisor, Gullastan, were none too-subtly coerced into paying their respects to Dain Ironfoot, while Orla was instructed to wait with the remainder of guards from Dale. She looked woefully after Bard as he was led away, though not before he had urged her to be patient and wait for him and, as he put it, "Reflect, but try not to anger our hosts. Dale cannot afford another war."

Dain, as it turned out, was in a rather decent mood – for his sort, anyway – and after only an hour or so of interrogation, he dismissed his fellow ruler and allowed the man quasi-free-reign of his "gloriously restored" domain. Bard returned to his entourage in more or less the same health he'd left in, only to discover that they were missing a member.

"The lady was led away, sir," explained one guard, "A dwarf – young, I think, with hair like it'd been cut with a bowl 'top his head – recognized her and asked if she wished to see where Thorin Oakenshield was buried."

"And you let her go?" Bard had not meant for her to go off by herself. He'd thought that had been clear but skin-changers be damned, apparently it had _not_. "The woman will have started a war before noon."

He had instructed the men to remain behind and he and Gullastan, as well as a dwarf Dain had appointed as a guide, were shown to a hall deep within the mountain.

"The Hall of Kings," the dwarf told them as they drifted through the never-ending halls of stone. Gold, silver, and stones so precious Bard could not hope to name them, decorated the walls and floors. It was like walking through a dream, for nothing in reality could possibly be so grand – no mortal could deserve such splendor. Hundreds, if not thousands of years of design from the best stone masons in all of Middle Earth had left the halls full of angles and patterns that stretched up into a ceiling so tall, Bard could not see it for shadow. Amidst it all lay the tombs of kings and their kin, of valiant warriors whose legends Bard had never heard, and graves long faded into anonymity.

"Where lies Thorin?" Bard asked as they walked, their footfalls echoing in the vast expanse.

"Ahead, at the end. He lies with his nephews, may Mahal rest their souls." For the rest of the walk, the dwarf said little else.

How much farther they walked, Bard could not count the steps, but they eventually came to an archway that seemed oddly small compared to the rest of the hall. It was plain and mostly unadorned, save for a lining of silver about the edges in a script the bowman could not read.

"This was meant for Thrór, though it is his grandson's body who now dwells inside." Stopping just short of the arch, the dwarf stepped aside to allow Bard to pass. Quietly, Bard thanked him and then instructed Gullastan to wait, to which the advisor nodded wordlessly before watching his king step through the archway and into the tomb ahead.

Thorin's burial chamber was not a mere room at all, but a cavernous space, vast and dark, save for the pale blue shimmer of flames that stood eternal watch over the three tombs that lay in the center. A silence so stark it set his ears to ringing pervaded the air, heavy and suffocating despite the size of the room. The space had surely been intended once for treasures unimaginable but it now stood empty and bare. The tombs were the only things of note in the chamber; they lay side by side, the center-most tomb slightly larger than the ones that flanked it. Each was constructed of grey stone, polished so as to shine with a near-mirror like quality. Beneath the glow of the flames, the tombs themselves seem to shimmer and move faintly, as though they were but a mirage, bound to disappear if one so much as blinked.

In front of the stone graves, stood Orla, her back ramrod straight, her arms locked at her sides, fingers curled in on themselves into fists that trembled and quaked. She did not turn as Bard approached, his steps intrusively loud as he drew nearer. The closer he neared, the more apparent her shaking became. Her entire body shook so visibly, Bard thought she must surely be crying. But he heard no sobs and she did not move to wipe away a single tear.

"Orla," he whispered lowly when he joined her side

She did not turn her gaze to him. Indeed, it was as if she had not registered his presence at all. Her eyes were locked upon the tomb in the center and from the hard set of them, Bard saw a reflection of the woman she had been before. Looking through those eyes now was someone who had hated with such an intensity that it had blinded her, consumed her. They were the eyes of a wolf, distant and cold, unmoved by the evidence of death.

Suddenly, her head snapped in his direction and for the first time, Bard dared to venture beyond her name in search of words that would help her.

Speaking of Thorin Oakenshield, he whispered, "He is gone."

 _They are all gone_.

Her rage was a silent one, but it chilled him to the bone.

 ** _He_** _deserved worse,_ she scowled as her eyes flicked back to Thorin's tomb _._

One of her hands flew up, her fingers drawing roughly across her lids to swipe at tears that had not yet begun to well.

 ** _They_** _deserved better._

Her small chin dimpled suddenly and her lips pressed together; that visage of wrath was crumbling quickly and no matter how she scrambled, she could not throw it back up fast enough.

 _I watched him die that day. I held him and I could not save him. I could not comfort him._

She choked abruptly, her shoulders rising and falling in a violent shudder. Her thoughts could not be of Thorin, Bard realized, for she had loathed the dwarf so thoroughly it had nearly destroyed her. No, she thought of one of the others, one who had _broken_ her.

Bard had not known the depth of whatever relationship had existed and the sudden realization hit him harder than he expected it would, or even could. Whatever she felt for one of the brothers, it drove the hate from her with a visible effect that left her tensed body sagging and her eyes heavy with unshed tears. Her gaze eventually strayed from him and Bard followed them as they drifted to the right-most tomb. The runes inscribed atop the heavy stone lid had little meaning for him but below the lettering, sculpted so finely not a tool-mark could be seen, was a bow and quiver. The work was so realistic, he had the fleeting notion that he might reach out and pick up the weapon, lift it in his hands and feel its weight between his fingers. The tomb on the left had a similar sculpture, only it was of a pair of dwarven swords, sister blades that shown and shimmered in the light as real steel might.

Without warning, Orla flung herself over to the archer's tomb, her hands splaying over its unmovable lid to support herself as her body slumped against it, threatening to give out. She sobbed once before wrenching her eyes closed, her teeth bared as she bit back the sorrow. Blindly, she reached out and skimmed her hands over the stone and across the bow until finally her fingers stilled at what would have been the grip of the weapon.

She had cared deeply for the dwarf that lay entombed beneath her hands. Bard had never guessed as much and neither had she ever hinted that she harbored such feelings for one of the company she had left behind. He stopped himself from going to her, no matter how the knot in his gut urged him forward.

When her eyes opened again, Bard saw in them the same haunted look she had worn whenever she had looked at the mountain from afar.

 _He did not deserve his fate._

Bard's words failed him. They caught in his throat, insufficient and useless. Orla looked as if she expected nothing from him; he was simply there with her, _for_ her, a living person in a chamber of ghosts. The breath left her all at once and she spun around, her back scraping at the tomb's edge as she slipped down to the ground. There, Bard watched as she craned her head back until it fell against the side of the hard stone and her eyes drifted closed. More tears flowed from the corners of her eyes, these silent and free of the keening that had threatened to erupt minutes earlier.

Bard could not bare it.

He rushed to her, his hands finding her forearms and yanking her up from the ground. She did not fight him; instead, her arms flew around him and latched at his back. There, she clung to him, gripping him as one would a buoy in a storm.

And at last, she _wept_.

With her face buried against his chest, hiding from the world that had been so cruel, the Bear-Man's daughter cried until she ran out of tears and ultimately, in the shadow of what had been and would never be again, the last of her goodbyes was finally said.

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It was late in the night that the entourage arrived back in the Dale. Erebor was left behind and if Orla would ever visit again, Bard found himself doubtful. She had left a piece of herself there in the burial chamber, for the woman who rode at his side was not the same who had made the earlier journey. _Something_ was gone from her, leaving her eyes clouded and her expression blank, and if it was for better or worse, only Orla knew. She retired immediately upon reaching the Great Hall, leaving Bard with no more than a slight nod of her head.

He let her have her way; it would not do to go after her, not that night, not after the demons she had confronted. _Rest. Heal_ , he bid her silently as he watched her slip out of sight. The smallest of smiles crept to his lips as he noted that her head no longer hung low, her shoulders no longer slumped, not even in the midst of exhaustion.

The next morning Orla was not at breakfast; she and her son had apparently taken their meal in the garden, instead. Without the other skin-changers present, Beorn had eyed Bard suspiciously throughout the meal. He had not been pleased with the news that the bowman had decided to travel to Erebor with his daughter in tow. The various growls and glowers he had threatened the younger man with had seemed to suggest that the chieftain would rather his child be allowed to forget that cursed place. Regardless, he had not stopped her and now that it was a new day, he apparently had no more idea than Bard of what to make of the changes in the woman.

Orla, for her part, avoided Bard for the majority of the day, greeting him once only in passing before disappearing down the hall, ignoring completely the shameful amount of throat-clearing and pointed coughs that Bard had made a show of. Her behavior was confounding at best and at worse, it left Bard with a sinking feeling of disappointment. It had been foolish to hope for a miraculous recovery, he understood as much, but after learning how deep her attachment to one of the lost princes had run, Bard was beginning to wish he had never made the suggestion to take her to the tomb in the first place. Never had he been one to run from his fears or the shame in his past, whether his or his family's; he stood guard over his memories and theirs. Grief, however, was something one had to recover from in their own time. It could not be forced, nor could it be faked. Yet, Orla's grief had not come from the loss of one dwarf, it had come from the loss of hundreds – men, women, and children, most of whom she had never laid eyes on. Her grief was reflected back at her each time she passed her reflection or saw the curiosity in another's eyes when she could not speak for herself.

He had wanted to help her, as friends helped friends, as she had once turned her back on those she held dear and chosen to aid him and his people. So many, Bard had helped, whether by his own hands or through his leadership. He could only hope that for her, he had done the same – that Orla would leave Dale, _him_ , better than she had been before.

It was late that evening when Bard saw her next. She came to him much the same as she had in the early days of her visit, slipping into his study when all the others had gone to bed. He had put work aside that night and was reading a book, his legs outstretched and propped upon his desk as he leaned back in his cushioned chair. He only saw her out of the corner of his eye; one did not _hear_ Orla coming. She glided in, wearing that same egg-cream-colored gown he had taken note of so many nights early. Her hair had been plaited – no doubt by one of his daughters – and was pulled away from her face. It was a full face, a healthy one, with rosy cheeks and eyes ringed with gradually fading circles.

In her own simple, unadorned way, she was lovely, though the admission could not have been beaten out of Bard with a stick. Not aloud, anyway. Not even as he stared at her, there not a yard from him, her hands clasped with an uncharacteristic shyness behind her back. The glow of the room's fireplace caught the thin cotton of the gown's arms and lower lengths in just the right – or wrong, if he were a better man – light, illuminating the outline of her body where the fabric did not cling to her. A fleeting thought occurred to him that she likely had never had anyone to tell her not to go running about the halls in such attire, but she was Orla and at that moment, looking at her, Bard was ashamed to say that he wouldn't have her any other way.

She greeted him with a nod of her head, a pale yellow ribbon spilling over her shoulders as she did so.

The book in his hands snapped closed with a heavy thud and he straightened in his chair, returning her wordless greeting. She came a step nearer, her hands coming to rest over her stomach, fingers twining and twisting against each other. After a moment, she met his eyes and whatever she saw there seemed to calm her, as she stopped her fiddling.

She had something to say and though she had no words to express it, Bard waited for her as patiently as he could, setting aside all the thoughts and concerns he'd had during the day. Her eyes were hidden partially in shadow, the firelight not quite reaching far enough to reveal what it was she wished to communicate. Placing the book upon the desk, Bard stood from his chair, if only to get a better look at her. She smiled faintly at him, grateful for his thoughtfulness, and one more moment of hesitation later, she was standing right before him. Her hands found his, clasping them together, one atop the other in between their bodies as she looked up at him.

 _I wished to thank you._

Bard could see the sincerity in her eyes, gleaming there among the smoky grey. He noted as well the curve of her lips, how full they were, the wideness and perpetually upturned corners suddenly far, far more enticing than he ever recalled them being. The soft pinkness was offset by the faint smattering of scarring, nearly invisible in the dim glow, yet, had they been standing in broad daylight, the scars would have made that mouth no less beautiful. With that soft smile grinning up at him, something deep within his chest tugged unbidden, urging him, all but _begging_ him, to just lean down the distance between them and taste those lips. But he did not. No, he forced himself to remain painfully straight, his whole body uncomfortably tense as he denied any urges of lunacy.

What he could not help was the tightening of his hands beneath hers, his fingers curling too roughly over the smaller ones, clenching them in his fist. Too his shock, those small digits clenched back instead of pulling away as they should have had the world had any sense at all left in it.

His tongue felt too clumsy to speak, but that did not deter him from grinding out her name. "Orla," he said and then was at a loss as to how to possibly continue. _Are you…better?_ He wondered. _Tell me of the good was done in that mountain. Was there any?_

But he knew there was. He had but to look at her to see it and at that moment, he could not look anywhere else.

Before he uttered another syllable, Orla was leaning up toward him on her toes. The faintest brush of her cheek against his, soft skin passing against the stubble at his jaw to jar every nerve in his body. Her lips, soft and full and infuriatingly, confoundingly _close_ , came to rest against the sharp angle of his jaw and pressed there gently. It was a kiss of thanks, of gratitude, and of absolute devotion – as a friend to a friend, perhaps her only friend, the only one who had done for her what she _needed_.

Bard jerked away as that heat and tenderness struck him like a slap to the face, fleeing like a prudish child, his eyes startled and hard. Orla's own eyes had gone wide in horror at his reaction, a burnt crimson flush flooding her cheeks with a vengeance. The unmistakable thanks that had been present in her gaze only a brief moment before was erased by embarrassment and apology and something else Bard had no wish at all to acknowledge. It wasn't hurt. No, no, it couldn't possibly be _hurt_. He wouldn't, couldn't hurt her, couldn't add to the burdens he had sought to relieve.

But it was hurt and he recognized the unmistakable burn of it in her eyes. She had wanted to thank him and had sought to do what she could when words failed her and a meaningful look was not enough, just as he had wanted to help her. But he had not been braced for Orla as a woman, rather than a companion and friend. He had reacted as a fool, like a virgin stable boy surprised by the brush of a girl's hand, the same sort of behavior he would have cuffed Bain for displaying. Shame filled him, striking his gut and chest and wrenching tight.

Shaking her head, fiercely apologetic, Orla stared back at him as she began to retreat. No one had likely ever rebuffed her so, for surely everyone who had ever known her had made allowances for her peculiarities. Appalled by himself for having put that awful, wounded look in her eye, Bard floundered for anything to make right what he had spent half a month trying to accomplish.

He opened his mouth to explain but the only words that came were perhaps worse than if he had left everything unsaid, unaddressed.

A gruff, "Goodnight, my lady," was all there was before his feet were carrying him – a survivor, a dragon slayer, and king – out the study door and away from the woman who terrified him more than any dream ever could.

By the time he awoke in the morning, that very woman was gone, with no sign that she would ever return to him.

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	5. Chapter 5

**Yearning, Evermore : Hope, Part 2**

 **I apologize for taking so long and leaving you in limbo. I made the (very much unintended) decision to take some time off from writing and editing to sort of find my head. Thank you to all of you for your continued support! It was very hard to step away from writing, particularly for this community, as I know how it feels when an author suddenly seems to abandon a story without a word. Regardless, I'm very happy to report that things are looking up and I'm glad to be back on the fanfiction bandwagon. I hope all of you are doing well! Best wishes and on with the show!**

 **Brief refresher: Orla has since left both Dale and Bard behind after an awkward not-quite-a-kiss-of-thanks. She has returned to Beorn's Hall to bond with her family for what is more or less her first truly extended stay in over a decade. Roughly a year has passed since the events in the last chapter.**

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One year had felt like ten. How long had Orla been away that she had forgotten how time in the Anduin Valley dragged by? Long days were followed by longer nights, until all thoughts of the mountains and cities faraway seemed more like dreams than memories. Her hands had become callused from work in the gardens and pastures, her breath lighter in her chest for the fresh air, and her body softer where it had once been lean. And her mind…it was _clearer_. It had taken time – a long time – to banish the ghosts of a company long since passed through those very halls in which she now dwelled, to learn how to shut her eyes when she imagined those specters seated at her father's table, gathered by the gate, or stomping out across the fields toward the tree line.

But Orla _had_ managed and it was a long time coming.

In the night, when the Hall was quiet and visions of a stone chamber filled her mind, with the chill air prickling her skin and the phantom tang of metal, rock, and empty space pervading her nose, Orla no longer wept. For when those memories came to find her, she recalled another who had faced the past with her, another who had held her while she bid her ghosts farewell. They were but memories now – dead and gone, resting where she could not follow. And yet, a part of her lay with the dead, gone, too, leaving a vacant, hollow space that could not be filled by honey or green pastures or little-boy smiles.

But still she managed.

Through the long days, Orla kept her feet planted on the soil for which she had been meant.

" _Keep the merry smile_ ," the sing-song words of an old friend echoed in her mind on those days, " _Keep the merry smile and it'll take you a merry mile_."

Old Tom. Old, wonderful, enigmatic Tom, who had helped her so. On blistered and dragging feet, with eyes as unfeeling and lifeless as a grave, Orla had gone to him. She knew not why, or even how she had found herself in the Old Forest near the Shire. For miles and weeks she had traveled, broken and beaten, until she had found him. Or, perhaps, he had found her.

Ol' Tom, capering by the Withywindle in a pair of worn yellow boots, had greeted her with joy enough to make her ears bleed. Almost a year, he had kept her – healing her mind and body with his songs and stories and sheer, mind-boggling oddity. But her soul – _that_ , he had not been able to mend.

" _Ripped asunder, torn in twain! Tom can't put it back again_!"

He had been right, of course. Tom, an old friend met by chance in her youth, a kindred spirit, had done all he could. She remembered the day she had left him and his beautiful Goldberry behind and the words he had said to her:

" _Merry is as merry does,_

 _Gossip's set the wood abuzz!_

 _You're healed, my girl, more or less,_

 _All I can do, I do confess._

 _I'll send you off,_

 _Back way you came,_

 _Whole and healthy in flesh and name._

 _But you're heart-sick and lonesome,_

 _A deceiving sight._

 _Best you go, child,_

 _And set it right_."

With those words, Orla had departed.

She went back to the valley, to her family, for surely that was what Tom had meant. She had a son and a father and when she had reached the home she'd once been cast out of, her father had met her at the Carrock before she had made it a step nearer the Hall. There, wordlessly, he had grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her back with him.

"Foolish girl-child," he had growled before slinging down in front of her more honey cakes and tea than she had ever seen.

"Where you've been, what you've been up to, it's to stop if you're to stay, you hear? No more dwarves, or battles, or silly fancies! Now eat, Mountain take you!"

Like that, they had settled into a routine. Grimbeorn had taken her arrival admirably, though he'd kept his distance for a long while, eyeing her with a suspicion and reserve that seemed natural to their people. It had suited Orla well enough, as she remained convinced that she was no good as a mother. A friend, maybe, one day, but even that had taken time.

And yet, as time went on, she did not find amongst her kin the satiation Tom had spoken.

As those early months had passed, there was yet one Orla had wished to see, one to whom she had greatly desired to prove she was… recovering. When she had found Bard at last, one year, two hundred and thirteen days after she had last seen him, that damaged part of her innermost-self had taken a gasping, starving breath and beat to life. For when she finally laid eyes on Bard the Bowman, she was reminded that not all the good in the world had died on the twenty-third day of November nearly two years before.

Looking into his eyes that day, she had forgotten the resentment and the fury she had felt toward him in those final days; she forgot how he and the others had stared at her with eyes laden with pity and guilt. Because when he had looked at her there in the hallway of his new home and _smiled_ , Orla had felt as near to whole as she could remember. He had looked at her for the first time in a long time and in his gaze had been relief and a quiet joy that she knew he would never put into words.

But then, just as she had become re-accustomed to his friendship and his often times short-tempered company, it had all crumbled away. With her lips pressed fondly to his cheek, all that they had repaired together seemed to matter little, for that kiss of thanks had been a transgression of sorts, even though Orla had not intentioned in her wildest dreams for it to be thought of as such. Thinking on it even in recent days caused Orla's cheeks to heat with shame – shame at having ruined what Bard had given her. When he had jerked away, those dark eyes of his had been hard and accusing and, unable to stand it, she had fled. Not from the Lonely Mountain, not from the dead, but from Bard the Bowman.

And for the next year, that blank, nameless thirst in her chest for _something_ grew ever sharper.

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It was not unusual for Orla's mind to wander, particularly when her feet could not. One day, as she was pounding away at a heap of sweet dough, that mind of hers thought back to a day spent with Bard on the banks of the river near Dale and of the passing mention of a festival in celebration of Smaug's defeat. Beornings didn't have festivals – they didn't particularly care for them by nature, noisy and crowded things that they were – and Orla had not attended one in many a year, not since her solitary travels had taken her to Bree. It had not been long after that very festival that she crossed paths with Gandalf the Grey for the first time. Needless to say, Dale's celebration was an idea that would not leave her. For the first time since she had settled down, her feet set to tapping, her eyes drawn with increasing frequency toward a horizon she had not longed to walk toward for many days.

Beorn did not understand when he first realized his daughter's wish to return to Dale. For an entire summer the pair argued, he with growls and sharp words and she with pleading glances to the east. Fall approached as father and daughter continued their battle. He feared that should she leave, she would not return. Orla was not blind to his concern; in fairness, it was well-founded. Dale was not so very near, after all, and she was not what she used to be and the journey had every possibility to be a dangerous one. Beorn himself was unwilling to go with her a second time, though Orla never dared ask him to do so.

 _A month is all I ask,_ she had begged, one delicate finger waggling near the big man's chest. Truthfully, it could potentially be nearer to three months if she took the long way around Mirkwood – two for travel and one to indulge her wish for a visit.

"No," snapped the older Beorning, "Now stop your askin', girl. It's too dangerous a world out there, y'know well enough."

 _Father!_ For a woman of thirty, Orla had even gone so far as to stamp her foot. Another scowl from the chieftain had warned her not to pursue the argument further, not that day at least.

As October drew nearer, her desire to venture forth grew more desperate. _Someone will go with me,_ she reasoned, _we can sell…cakes or….something. Wood carvings!_ She snatched up a whittled animal figure from a nearby shelf and waved it at Beorn. _Five gold, easily!_

Her father remained unswayed, grabbing the wooden figurine and putting it back where it had come from.

"There are not so many of us as to go wandering about. Our place is here." Beorn's eyes narrowed on her. " _Your_ place is here."

At his words, Orla looked away. _But it's not, is it?_ She could not help the thought. A year spent in the same place, comfortable and sound, and still her mind and heart were drawn back to the east. She desired greatly to see Dale again. Not for the first time did it occur to her that the fear of laying eyes on the Lonely Mountain was not what it used to be. She needed to go back; there was something yet to be made right and Orla had never been one to let such things go unattended.

A rustle at the far end of the room announced Grimbeorn's entrance. The boy trudged inside, an armful of firewood hiding his shoulders and head.

 _Let me take the boy. He should see a festival at least once._

Her glance at her son earned an immediate rejection, with Beorn shaking his head furiously. "No. The two of you will find trouble quicker than one might. You cannot watch ye'self, Orla, and I won't send a twelve year old t' babysit his own mother."

Orla huffed and crossed her arms, her body sagging against the wall in momentary defeat.

Shortly thereafter, her prayers for a new and improved strategy with which to do battle against her sire's stubborn but solid reasoning arrived in the most unexpected of forms. It was a rainy morning when the elves arrived in Beorn's lands. They were greeted by the Bear-Man, who had grudgingly invited them into the Hall…if only to hear word of what was transpiring in the lands to the west. They had come from Rivendell and were returning to Mirkwood, bearing some message or another for the Elvenking, Thranduil.

There, seated with his guests at the dining table, whatever her father had desired to say went unsaid, for his words died in his throat when Orla entered the room, dressed from head to toe in her traveling clothes, a pack slung over one shoulder.

She meant to go with the elves, if they would have her.

For too long she had indulged in the comfortable life at Beorn's hall, ignoring the pang of _something_ in her chest, the resonance of an unfulfilled need she could not describe.

 _I must go,_ Orla looked to her now silent father, _for a little while._

The elves agreed to escort her as far as Thranduil's lands, or so they promised after many a glare and foul word from the Beorning chieftain. They swore that they would travel quickly, for one like Orla could not linger long in that cursed forest, and Orla likewise promised to take the long way back around. She had expected her father to rage for longer than the initial shock of her departure lasted, but he grew quiet, his massive chest heaving, and the dark grey of his eyes turned sad.

"You best return, girl, or I'll come find you myself," he said before pulling his child's small frame into an awkward embrace that lifted her toes from the floor boards and caused her bones to creak. Grimbeorn, as well, bid Orla goodbye, his hands clasped around her with a fondness that surprised her.

For one long week, she traveled with the elves. They had not lied when they swore they would travel quickly, and they were knowledgeable of Mirkwood's many twists and turns. The path that they followed was a long and narrow one, like that a deer might make, and they kept to it all the way to Thranduil's lands. At the far edge, they bid Orla farewell and instructed her to walk two days eastward, stopping only at the scant few guard postings dotted along the bends of the Forest River. She dared not disobey; indeed she moved so expediently that two days travel was shortened to little over a day.

It was an indescribable feeling – to have a foreign path underneath her boot soles once again, after so many months spent in semi-contentment amidst her own people. Alone, surrounded by black trees and roaring rapids, a fear began to well up in her belly, driving her forward at a near constant jog. In her mind, just behind her eyes, the faintest buzzing had begun to rattle around her skull, like a fly trapped between her ears. With each low throb, Orla moved more swiftly, bypassing the elves' postings, well-hidden within in the trees, and their offer of rest. Her feet had grown sore after only the second day of travel and now they ached for relief Orla would not grant.

The sight before her when she broke from the dense tree line and out into the open was both a relief and the stuff of nightmares, as the river swelled to twice its previous width until it stretched out and emptied into the dark, scarred waters of the Long Lake. Her breath caught in her mouth and she forced it down as she looked out at the remains of Esgaroth. Smaug was still waving back, as though he had never stopped during her absence, and in her ears she swore she could yet hear a roar rising up from that decaying skeleton. Swallowing that lodged breath, Orla shook her head and did all she could to convince herself that it was the rapids far behind her that she heard, not the ghost of a beast years dead.

Her eyes trailed from that water-bound graveyard and out over the distance to a mountain leagues away and the city that rested before it, cradled in the shadows between the Lake and Erebor. Dale had expanded in the year she had been away; the landscape around it was speckled with newly built farms, the surrounding fields, once a battle ground, now gleamed beneath sun in various golden hues and deep greens. Boats bobbed and dipped along the far side of the water, and Orla thought that if she squinted hard enough, she might see the fishermen within them pulling up nets and poles filled with bounty.

The road was yet a long one, farther than it looked, and the blue of the sky was fading into warmer shades of oranges and pinks. A night among the stars would do her no harm and Orla bedded down out of sight from the road, stretching out her weary muscles, her gaze turned toward the city. Her heart beat for it, as if through desire alone the distance might grow shorter. Even the Mountain beyond, hidden now in darkness, seemed less like a tomb and more a memorial to those good souls it would house until time itself slowed and eventually fell away. It was a peculiar juxtaposition, Orla noted, her past and her present laying within sight but yet out of reach. There in the night, the ache in her heart suddenly grew sharp, nearly forcing her to her feet so that she might continue on, but she tamped it down and flipped onto her back with naught but a few grumbles. Tomorrow seemed too far away, she decided, and yesterday was growing further and further behind.

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 **Thank you for reading. A transitional, catch-up chapter. But on we go!**

 **I've also decided to stop the snippet format here/full-version there that I was originally doing, as its much too convoluted. Sorry, snippet readers. From here out, this story will be posted in its entirety both here and on AO3. So, don't worry about having to skip from one site to the other for diff. versions.**

 **Also, for readers still alerted to the Bear-Man's Daughter, don't be too alarmed if you get a message saying its been updated. I plan on giving it a good polishing and that might involve changing some chapters around.**


	6. Chapter 6

**I've posted two chapters back to back, mostly because I'm a complete troll for dropping off the face of the earth. Make sure you read the one before this first, obviously.**

 **Thanks as always. Enjoy!**

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It was late October when Orla walked once more through the gates of Dale. The city was busier than she had imagined, with people of all descriptions bustling back and forth through the main marketplace. All manner of decorations were going up along the streets – banners, most of them red and emblazoned with the golden outline of a dragon, streamers made from silk and inlaid with gold and silver, and countless stalls peddling not only wares, but pastries so fine they came very near putting Beorning honey-cakes to shame. There was so much life that Orla stood dazed by it all for a long while, until a pair of dwarven women – or, she was fairly certain they were women – brushed past her and nearly knocked her to the ground.

It took several attempts but eventually she found an inn with room enough to take her. The innkeep eyed her strangely, only briefly off-put by her silence and understanding well enough when she shoved a handful of coins at him that she wished for accommodations.

"Festival's soon," he reminded her, "Plenty of fun for your husband and children, madam!"

Orla only acknowledged the man's words with a small smile and nod before sweeping away and up the stairs, and falling promptly into bed. She had meant to sleep, if only for a little while, but the bed was rough and rickety and her mind much too busy to drift off as would have been appreciated. She had friends out there, up a ways from the market, in a large home with many comfortable beds, and why she had not gone to them, Orla did not rightly know.

She doubted that they would not welcome her, as Bard could not possibly have stayed cross with her for an entire year. But, she rationalized, he was surely busy and she was not entirely certain what she would say – or rather, _do_ – when she met him. Likely there would be an overly extravagant wave of salutations on her part, followed by an uncomfortable and dreadfully awkward one-sided chat about the weather. It happened to be a well-known fact that throughout most of her life, Orla had made it a point to either ignore or completely forgo any and all things awkward and the idea of the comradery she held with Dale's king somehow being amiss kept her firmly rooted within the four walls of her room.

It was only in the late evenings that she ventured out into streets that had not grown any emptier in the fading light. There were not too many of those outings to be had before the festival rolled around on the first day of November. From the wee hours of the morning, the residents of the city rushed to finish any last minute tasks that remained. That day, Orla's courage swelled to the point of venturing out before noon and she spent the entire walk to the market being jostled about between hurried locals.

In the center of town, a large winged, serpentine figure had been erected atop a pole that stood a solid twenty feet high. Orla had never seen anything like it. It was constructed mostly of dried grass and twigs, all twined together and bundled with rope. She guessed they likely meant to set it aflame during the night, or so she wagered from what the townspeople were joyously calling the "desecration of Smaug."

That massive construct only held Orla's attention for so long, however, when her eyes fell on those who stood gathered around the base of the pole. A group of men with outstretched arms heaved the structure upward with ropes and beams while others scrambled to center it in the ground. Leading them, his voice drawing her attention as a magpie to a glint of silver, was none other than Bard himself. He stood near the base of the pole, a heavy beam pressed into his shoulder as he pushed up with the others around him, shouting all the while either to "push harder" or, more often, several colorful variations of "no, no, NO!"

A smile plucked at the corners of Orla's lips at the sight of her friend just as the rest of her fought the urge to fling herself out of the way and behind the nearest and busiest group of onlookers she could find. She settled for slipping against a nearby wall, out of the king's direct line of sight – as though he paid her any attention at all with the weight of giant beam of wood pressing down on him – so that she could observe in earnest. It did her good to see that he looked well. His advisors had clearly been unsuccessful in convincing him to trade in his simple brown threads for something finer. The muted colors suited him, or so Orla decided, especially against the dark of his hair and the hard set of his face. That same rough edge she had come to associate with him remained, though his people certainly did not seem to mind, slapping him on the back and laughing heartily with him as the pole and its load were finally steadied into place.

A braver woman might have said hello, especially if they had traveled so far, in part, to visit the very man who now stood just across the square. Orla, however, had had her fill of bravery and was content to just watch for the time being, to take in the happy grin and laughter of someone who had earned such simple pleasures. When Bard was eventually swept away and out of sight by some duty or another, Orla watched him go, her chest swelling with warmth, happy in the knowledge that life for one of the Battle's survivors was well-lived.

She spent the next several hours wandering about the many streets, browsing over trinkets and fine things she had little interest in, and watching in silent admiration as the people around her turned a tragedy into a day of commemoration and celebration. The first notes of music stirred the air in the mid-afternoon and before long, folk were tapping their feet and shouting to one another from balconies and street corners. Sooner rather than later, pulled along by a tide of passing people, Orla returned to the city-center. Dwarves, Men, and even a sparse few elves milled about, some dancing, some eating and drinking, and all of them laughing.

The day's light was just beginning to fade when someone caught Orla's arm and swung her around with a girlish squeal. The skin-changer found herself pulled without warning into the arms of a young woman whose face she had yet to see, but in whose honey- brown hair Orla was all but drowning.

"Orla!" cried the girl as she released the older woman. It was Sigrid, Bard's eldest, who had found her. Now near twenty, she stood several inches taller than Orla and the woman felt very aware of every inch of it, still held within Sigrid's grasp. She was a beautiful girl, more so than ever as she stood in the dim light in a dress of bright blue and cream.

"Father did not tell me you were coming! Oh, but we've missed you," Sigrid told her, directing her out from under the feet of the masses.

The girl's bright eyes were genuine and Orla's heart grew lighter upon hearing her words. Orla had missed them all, certainly, but she had apparently been missed as well and the spiral of nerves whirling about her belly quieted at the knowledge. A dainty hand went up to tug at an unstyled curl hanging by Orla's jaw and immediately the older of the pair realized what was going through the girl's mind. Sigrid had developed an appreciation for refinement, a trait that was often belied by her innate practicality. Whatever wheels were turning in the young woman's head as she took in Orla's simple green skirt and wild, untamed hair were ignored in full as Orla moved instead to distract her with a gesture of her hand toward the crowd of dancers.

The diversion worked, for Sigrid's wide eyes grew wider and she said, "Isn't it wonderful? All this excitement and no chance at all of anyone drowning in a canal." She laughed merrily before she went on, "Have you seen Father?"

Orla shook her head, though, much like Sigrid, her eyes continued to follow the dancers as they swept past.

"He's at the main table," the young woman explained, pointing to a spot at the far end of the market, near where the effigy of Smaug had been erected. "Wait," she looked back to Orla with narrowed, suspicious eyes, "You've yet to see him? Didn't you tell him you were coming?"

With flushing cheeks, Orla shook her head.

"Then it shall be a surprise! He'll be so pleased to see you. Tilda, too. She's…somewhere."

Orla managed somehow to keep the frown to herself as she tried not to think of any alternatives besides Bard being _pleased_ by her arrival. That was something to think on later in the evening at the earliest, however, for Bard was busy sitting in his king's chair, surrounded by his friends and people, no doubt giving them his undivided attention, as good and proper kings should. Instead, Orla took Sigrid's hand and directed the girl's gaze to a young man nearby, one who had been watching the younger woman bashfully since she had appeared from the crowd.

 _Go,_ Orla urged, _dance with him!_

Her cheeks turning a mighty shade of pink, Sigrid glanced down at the cobblestone ground, her fingers pulling from Orla's hand to wring together.

 _Shoo!_

Orla, desperate to be rid of the girl before she wound up being pulled too soon in front of the former bargeman, pushed gently at Sigrid's back before smiling encouragingly at the young man. He needed no further hints and before another minute had passed, Sigrid was giving him her hand as he led her away.

"Find my father," the young woman called back with a giggle, "or I will!" And then she was gone, leaving Orla to stand back, as happy to watch as she was to partake.

As the sky darkened, an older man with rough hands but a kindly, jovial smile, coaxed the Beorning out for a dance, followed by another, until she was swept up by the next partner. They paid no mind to her silence and though she had rarely danced before, she found her lack of finesse mattered little among the music and cheer. She wound up nearer the center pole than she had previously been, one partner holding tight to her hands as they spun about it. Over the man's shoulder, Orla caught sight of Sigrid again, the young woman having taken a seat at the long table that was stretched out before the effigy. Sigrid spotted her and threw up her hand to wave before Orla was dipped around and lifted up into the air. With a delighted snort of laughter, her toes once again touched the ground and Orla looked about, hoping to see others enjoying themselves as much as she; what she saw, however, was the man she had been so adeptly avoiding since arriving in Dale. He was seated beside Dain Ironfoot and another dwarf whom Orla had not thought to see again. Balin held the king's ear, regaling him with what was likely a tale of times long since passed.

Straying from the white-haired dwarf, Bard's eyes found hers and it was obvious that whatever story had held him so raptly just moments before fell suddenly on deaf ears, for the man's gaze widened so comically that another giggle bubbled up from Orla's throat. She could not wave, as her hands were held by the young man she danced with, and so she settled for smile – a small one, one that was familiar to the bowman, one that conveyed as simply as she could the joy her heart felt at having finally seen him after a year gone. If he smiled back or proceeded to scowl her into inexistence, Orla was not able to see before she was pulled away and swept back into the crowd.

She soon discovered that, when one has not danced in earnest on a semi-regular basis, one's feet and body tire relatively quickly after an evening of the activity. Another song came to an end before she knew it and Orla graciously extricated herself from her dance partner's hands. She could no longer see the king's table for the crowd that was spreading around the jackstraw in the center of the square. Night had fallen and the time for the desecration of Smaug was fast approaching.

Orla retreated to the edge of the crowd, content to watch the burning there. She was settled only a moment when a young man stopped shortly at her side. Glancing up, she found Bain grinning down at her.

"I found you," he spoke softly over the quiet murmur that had replaced the ripping music and bawdy singing. Near silence had descended over the town center, leaving a low-humming anticipation in the air.

Bain offered his arm to her.

"My lady," he said and winked. "Come watch from Father's table. Sigrid insists that you're our guest of honor whether you wish it or not."

There was a twinkling in his eyes that was Orla had seen amongst all Bard's children, a dancing light behind the surface, masked and contained but present nonetheless. It made her smile.

The young man went on, "Father seems to agree, all the glaring aside."

The Beorning's stomach clenched at his invitation. She decidedly did not wish to go to the table now that she was suddenly presented with the chance. It was not only Bard who sat there, but Balin as well. Since the reclamation of Erebor, Orla had only briefly come into contact with one other former member of Thorin and Company – Ori, who had come shuffling by during her last visit to the dwarven kingdom. With a squeak, the young dwarf had spotted her among Bard's guards and had, in his peculiar, sheepish way, offered to escort her to the graves of her fallen comrades.

Unconvinced but seeing no way out, Orla reluctantly accepted the boy's offer and rested her hand in the crook of his elbow. She had no words with which to decline, nor any particularly pressing matters that needed immediate attention, and she had come all the way from her father's valley for just such a visit, after all. As such, she grudgingly allowed Bain to lead her away. It was a choking mix of relief and disappointment that settled in Orla's chest as she drew nearer the table and saw that Bard was not _presently_ present at all.

Bain, having seen her look about, directed her wordlessly to the centermost attraction. There, Bard stood, though he seemed to be paying little attention to Smaug. He was, instead, looking at Orla – rather too crossly for her comfort – as he accepted a torch from one of his subjects. He took it blindly from the fellow's hand, and the look he was currently bestowing on the Beorning woman was impressively easy to read – it was clearly something along the lines of, _We will be speaking later. Don't run. Don't hide. Don't even try it, because we_ _ **will**_ _be speaking later._

Appropriately hangdog, Orla trudged along at Bain's side until she reached the table-side, where he deposited her politely beside a chair two seats down from good old Balin. The dwarf, with his immaculate white beard adorned with gleaming, cursed gold, greeted Orla with a beaming smile and an incline of his head.

"It does my heart good to see you, lassie," the old dwarf spoke quietly and a nostalgic pang struck too close to Orla's heart.

Orla could do nothing but give an acknowledging nod. She did not wish to look at him but she could not help it – Balin, who always seemed to know everything. He had always been kind to her in what few interactions they'd had, a long time ago. His eyes, like her own, were heavier than they had once been. He had lost a king and a dear friend that day, three years prior, one he had followed to the ends of the earth. Thorin's death had marked him in a subtle sort of way that was hard to pinpoint amidst the lines two hundred plus years of life hard-lived had left on him.

Beside him, Dain Ironfoot leaned around to look at the woman to whom his companion spoke. The white-haired dwarf offered a quick explanation that Orla had, in fact, been one of Thorin's company. Unconvinced but seemingly more or less uncaring, the Lord of Erebor snorted gruffly and looked her over once before giving her the smallest of nods, which went entirely unreturned. Balin turned to Orla once again when his king's attention had waned and when those knowing eyes of his found hers, Orla saw in them something which made her stomach cinch tight and sink, something that all at once infuriated her beyond reason.

 _Pity_.

And if a dwarf like Balin pitied her, then he surely had a reason. He _knew_ – knew the one reason why anyone had ever pitied her. And if he knew, then it was because someone had told him. Someone – and there was only who could have – had brought up not Orla's mere presence, nor her smiles and dancing and recovery, but her past weakness and foolishness. And _that_ was what he had told to Balin to put that look in the dwarf's aged, sorry eyes.

"You look well, lass," Balin said though his words went unacknowledged.

Orla snapped her head to look away to find the traitorous bastard who had overstepped his bounds. Sudden heat beat against her face through the chill air, and the crackle of kindling as it was consumed by spreading, hellish flame seemed to boom like thunder in quiet square. Smaug glowed red in the near distance and a chorus of cheers from the crowd drowned out what Balin said next.

It was no matter. Orla had not wished to hear his words.

In her chest, disappointment wrapped its cold, vice-like fingers around her heart and twisted. Bard had _told_. Of all the things to speak of – his surprise, his annoyance, anything – he had addressed Orla's greatest flaw. Perhaps it was natural, she tried to reason, for stories of loss and pain to be shared between warriors, survivor to survivor. But she had tried so very hard! For three years, she had recovered, always seeking, _searching_ , to make right what had gone wrong. She had smiled and batted her eyes in hopes that what had happened might be forgotten by those who mattered, that she might once more be just Orla again, rather than the poor girl who had paid a steep price and was left scarred and maimed beyond any other use than _pity_.

Scowling, her face clouded even in the glare of the firelight, Orla glanced back to Balin, who, unlike the others around him, paid no mind to the night's main event. Instead, he continued to watch her, his mouth set in a soft, sad frown.

"Ye'll be stronger for it," he said gently, "But it's a poor trade – strength for silence."

As she settled back in her chair, Orla knew that the words were true. Her anger, however, was not lessened, not in the face of pity she had believed long passed. Unwilling to revisit the past any longer, she gave her old companion a conceding dip of her head before slipping out of her seat. The crowd yet milled about, their eyes reverently cast upon Smaug as he burned to embers. Orla, for her part, decided in the span of seconds that she had no use for festivals anymore.

Instead, she glided through the masses, bound for a place far from sight where she might forget an evening gone sour. From behind, someone called her name, sharp but low, a voice not quite a shout. Her teeth ground at the sound, her eyes narrowed, and her pace became hurried and less polite as she shouldered past gawkers.

She did not want to look at _him_ now. Not anymore. Perhaps tomorrow, when she was not quite so angry and the sting had eased. Perhaps.

She heard the shuffle of feet and murmured apologies as people parted more readily for their king. Bard called for her once more, his voice gruff in his own anger.

 _Good,_ seethed the Beorning as she finally broke from the main crowd, _he deserves it. He deserves –_

She stalled briefly in her march when she found her path partially blocked by two sleepy-eyed guardsmen leaned against the wall of the archway to the side-street for which she was bound. They straightened and inched from her path, muttering apologies she did not hear. She had only just managed to stomp past them when a large and heavy hand closed over her arm and drew her back.

Naturally, there were many unwise things which one could do and one that was particularly unwise was to grab a Beorning when she happened to be feeling prickly, or so Orla would have told the guardsman who snatched her, had she been able. Whirling about, a temperamental storm of hurt feelings and general fussiness, Orla lashed out, her forearms landing against a solid chest and shoving roughly.

As the bad luck that followed her would decree, it was not a guardsman whom she struck, for it was not a guardsman who had grabbed her. Bard, King of Dale and all-around no good, busy-body, tattle-tale, stumbled back with a grunt as the woman's arms connected with his chest. Orla had no time to contemplate her mistake, for the guards who had so nicely stepped away from her path moments prior, swooped in on her, catching her about the shoulders and arms, their grips tight and biting.

Wide-eyed, Orla cried out as one man wrenched an arm behind her, cursing in her ear something about shoving Dale's king. She, like most people, did not appreciate man-handling and appreciated it even less after a night spent in the Defiler's captivity. As her eyes squeezed shut to fight back the wave of fear, white, wormy fingers pressed into her skin once more, burning her, branding her, and in her sudden panic, Orla tried to rip away from the men who held her. She stomped at toes and shins, rolling her shoulders to try and throw off the bigger men, only to slam her head back into one's teeth.

Before her, Bard shouted for them to unhand her, his own eyes wide in horror as the woman thrashed and kicked. He charged forward, yanking one guard away so that the man spun and stumbled.

"I said release her!"

Orla tore free the moment the second guard's grip loosened. She shoved the man once and then again, her lips curled in a soundless snarl. For a moment, the guard looked ready to catch her again but Bard intervened, sliding between the furious Beorning as much to shield her as to stop her blows from connecting with the public servant.

"Perhaps, gentlemen," he said sternly, gritting his teeth threw the striking at his back that had yet to abate, "You should return to your duties nearer the crowd."

Gently, one hand came to rest against Orla's shoulder, stilling its livid shaking until Orla took notice and shrugged the intrusive appendage off with an angry huff. The guards said nothing and gave only an obedient nod and bow before stepping away. Orla wagered they judged her to pose little threat to their liege. They were mostly correct, though that did not stop her from shouldering roughly past Bard.

She felt rather than heard him sigh, all the breath and fight going out of him in a single, short rush of air. She almost turned, so surprised by his surrender, but she held her ground stubbornly, her toes curling within her boots to root her where she stood.

"Goodnight, Orla," she heard Bard say softly, her name from his lips lacking the usual scolding quality she had come to expect.

Puzzled, she almost turned, if only to get a better look at his face, at what that usually sharp-eyed, stern countenance might reveal. If Orla didn't know better, she would say he sounded almost…sad. But as was her nature, her temper flared again suddenly, reminding her just in time of why she was cross with him, and with a dismissive flick of her wrist, she resumed her retreat.

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 **The End.**

 **...**

 **Trololol! Just kidding. *Ahem*** **Hope you all enjoyed it!**


	7. Chapter 7

**As always, thanks for reading!**

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The night was a restless one for the Bear-Man's daughter; she had fled, unashamed, from Bard and Smaug and the whole damnable festival. When her room door was closed and locked and she had thrown herself onto the sorry excuse for a mattress, stirrings of regret kept her awake even as the dull light of morning began to filter into the room. The soreness in her heart hardly eased, no matter how tightly she curled into her pillow. Hers was a foolish reason to be angry, Orla well knew, but her pride was wounded and Beornings never had dealt well with such injuries. There were no nightmares of Azog or his warg to haunt her, though her arms still ached dully where the guards had held her. Perhaps there would be bruises later, blue and black and welty, but she did not care. She had survived worse, and as the dim blue-grey light turned to gold, she vowed to think on their rough treatment no longer.

What she needed was fresh air, free of burning straw, pipe weed, and baked goods. _Yes,_ Orla decided as she sat up from the bed, _a walk, I think. A walk to think and then to Bard's for a…visit. And maybe breakfast._

It wasn't so much that Bard needed apologizing to, far from it since Orla wasn't particularly the apologizing sort, but the night had done what nights are supposed to do and cleared her mind for a new day. She had come too far and spent too long a time before that to stay truly angry with her friend. Another half a day spent pouting and stomping about and Orla wagered she might even find herself in a forgiving sort of mood.

As such, she slid from the bed and splashed her face in the bowl of tepid water a serving girl had changed the night before. She shook her hair loose from its sleep-flattened state and exchanged her skirt for a pair of bright green trousers that hadn't been washed since she had reached the city. Once downstairs, thoughts of breakfast slipped her mind as she took in the many heads hanging low over their bowls of gruel. Most, it seemed, had partaken too much in the spirits offered the night before and suffered for it now.

 _Better then to leave them to their moaning and groaning_ , she thought, dodging a wayward swipe from a patron as he waved for the barkeep. _Yes, better indeed. To the lake, far away, where there's less_ …she side-stepped a puddle of something chunky and greenish… _regret going on_.

The streets were mostly quiet, the decorations and stalls still in place, and Orla wagered it was even later than she had originally supposed, for the sun was creeping timidly overhead to part the grey November clouds. By the time she reached the lake, it was nearly noon and only farmers in their distant fields seemed to have seen fit to begin their day. Smooth, black water lay before her and Orla ignored the sudden wish she felt that the Long Lake was not so dark, that it might be crystalline like the Anduin. She was content to look out over the water regardless, past the great, serpentine skeleton and the ruins, to the land far beyond.

Behind her, the whinnies and clomping of hooves preceded the smell of her least favorite four-legged creature and she turned, her nose wrinkling indelicately, to see a dozen well-outfitted horsemen headed along the road. They bore Dale's standards and, with a curse of her luck, Orla realized who rode among them. Bard and his advisor, Gullastan, sat astride their overlarge steeds, followed by guards and, Orla noted, several riderless ponies. She wondered if she might hide somewhere, maybe throw herself behind a rock or off the dock, but no opportunity presented itself and she supposed she was awfully difficult to miss, the only soul in the immediate area and swaddled in bright colors to boot.

It was too much to hope that a day might go as planned and that she might have had the chance to do things her way. As such, Bard spotted her – for she saw the jerk of his head the moment he laid eyes on her – and drew his horse to a stop before leaning over the saddle to his advisor.

 _Oh, a fine thing, just a fine thing_ , thought the woman as she crossed her arms none-too-subtly.

Whatever words were being exchanged, she debated over using the moment to dash off to somewhere that wasn't within sight of any bargemen. Her legs proved traitorous, however, refusing to budge, and Orla gave them a spiteful slap. The sting did nothing to chase away the nerves that had set to buzzing in her stomach and almost everywhere else. Running, she supposed, had to stop being an option at some point and Bard needed a good scolding anyway. So it was that she remained there on the ground, watching and waiting to see if the king would come to her before one or both of them turned grey.

He had apparently seen fit to shoo off the entourage that followed him, much to poor Gullastan's obvious displeasure, and sent his own horse with them as well. It was a point in his favor, at least, for the great pawing, biting beasts held little charm. His usual stride was slowed, Orla noted with interest, and she was not certain if she should attribute it to saddle-soreness or if, perhaps, the mighty Bard the Bowman might be just as unexcited about the coming encounter as she was herself.

 _Most interesting_.

Yes, it was something with which she might work, something with which to strike back in her own petty way.

She watched him approach; Grimbeorn had once made a similar march, shuffling his feet slowly, almost petulantly, when he had been forced to apologize to an older Beorning matron for swiping a gooseberry pie. Bard, with his eyes downcast and hands clenched at his sides, had no sooner come within five feet of her than did she suddenly stand up, scowl at him, and then turn her back and prance away.

She did not need to see him to glean some small pleasure from the uncharacteristic sputter that erupted from his previously sealed lips.

He called after her in his normal manner, sharp, as though he spoke to one of his girls. When Orla did not obey, bound for the dock, she heard him hiss, "Don't be such a child!"

 _Better a child than a low-down, no good, gossip-ninny_! thought the woman with a snort.

Her feet hit wood and she trod out onto the dock, sleek, dark water on either side. In truth, Bard had not gossiped; he had simply relayed facts. That had not made the pity in Balin's eyes any easier to swallow, however, and Orla's temper sparked just thinking of it. She had never wanted pity, not from anyone, least of all from a friend such as Bard – yet it had required just such a feeling to prompt him to tell her story when it need not be explained at all. He could have let her linger in her silence, leaving Balin none the wiser. After three years he still thought of her, saw her even now, not simply as Orla, but as Orla, the friend who'd had a positively rotten day.

"Orla!"

With a huff, she stopped her pacing. It was not by choice. No, she had run out of dock. She heard the loud click of his boots against the wood behind her, heard it slow to a halt, and felt his presence at her back. There was warmth from him, his larger body blocking out the chilling breeze, and if Orla had not made up her mind already to make him suffer a while longer, she might have caught herself leaning into him. She half expected to feel a hand upon her shoulder and when she did not, she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep a sullen frown from working its way onto her face.

Warm breath ghosted over the back her head, tickling the curls there as he sighed.

"I…cannot ask what has angered you," the bargeman shuffled at her back and grunted out, "so _thoroughly_. So, as King of Dale and as your _friend_ , I hereby solemnly apologize for whatever grievance my error in judgement incurred."

In a whirl of curls, Orla spun about, wide-eyed, to face the man at her back.

 _What?_ Her lips parted as she stared up at him. _What?_

Those had not been Bard's own words, surely, and apologies did not count unless they were genuine, no matter how pretty they sounded.

The corners of Bard's eyes crinkled and he looked away quickly, hiding a small smile behind a swipe of his hand.

He lost the battle against a chuckle and shook his head, "That was what Gullastan 'advised' me to say. He's rather articulate for a bloodletter."

Oh. _Oh_.

Having recognized the game, Orla swept past him before he had the chance to spot the grin cracking past her lips. She snorted rudely once more for good measure and preceded back the way she had come, dancing over a spiral of rope cast off from a ship that was no longer moored. Whatever laugh Bard had thought to get away with died quickly and he was after her not a moment later.

"Orla –"

She slowed long enough that he might follow.

"I was not expecting –"

Two more steps away was all it took from her before Bard finally groaned.

"I am _sorry_ ," he said finally and she turned to face him. "For last night and…for the last year."

His eyes were earnest, as they always seemed to be, though now Orla noticed that the normally hard cast to them had faded. The sudden sincerity of it struck her sharply and her own smile vanished in the wake of surprise.

Bard took a step closer, one foot over the rope that separated them. "I owed you more than was given," he told her firmly.

Orla recalled that evening, one year earlier, and how ashamed she had been by the misjudgment that she still believed responsible for the splintering of their rapport. She shook her head in denial of Bard's words.

 _You owe me nothing._ And he didn't. Not for that evening. Not when he had stood by her side in the belly of Erebor.

He opened his mouth to speak again and Orla was suddenly certain that she wished to hear no more apologies. She was better than she had been and in the light of day, it had been a foolhardy thing to grow cross over. Darting forward to silence him, one hand outstretched to raise to his mouth, she moved too quickly. The toe of her boot slipped beneath the rope underfoot and before she could right herself, she was falling forward into Bard with a startled grunt. He swiped for her as he stumbled, hands flinging out to find purchase on anything at all, and likewise she reached for him, only to catch his wrist as he fell. He was too heavy and too near the edge of the dock for her to hold and with a shout, Bard, King of Dale, went into the waters of the lake with a splash.

Stunned, Orla stood dumbly for a long moment on the edge, looking down at the dark ripples where Bard had gone in and, after a moment of logical thought, she was torn between worry for Bard and worry that one of his overzealous guardsmen might have seen what did not look unlike an attempted assassination. The more immediate concern won out and Orla dropped to her knees and fished out a hand just as Bard popped up to the surface, gasping and choking on water and wet, inky hair. Like a fish, he splashed, catching one hand against the dock and another in Orla's.

It was too late that she realized the look he gave her for what it was – and that was pure, unabashed spite – and soon that cold hand about her wrist pulled tight and sent her, open-mouthed and gaping, into the November water with a splash.

Spitting, coughing, and kicking, Orla surfaced to the sounds of hearty, if somewhat chittery, laughter. Though she had suspected the water would be cold, that did not ease the shock; she had not forgotten that the last time she had been in this very water there had been no shortage of ice.

 _Rotten bastard! Clumsy, cheating, no good fish-licker_!

She sent a mouthful of water at Bard for good measure before paddling in earnest toward the safety of the dock. Seething, she kicked away Bard's offer of aid, namely his hands at her back as he tried to hoist her up. _Son of a Lake-Man's whore! Thrice damned, carp-blooded coc-_ With a gasp, Orla flopped onto the dock, the wooden planks blessedly warm against her back. A few moments of splashing later and then Bard crawled up beside her, clearly more accustomed to the cold than she. He shrugged out of his heavy coat and cast it off, where it landed with a soggy plop some feet away.

The frigid water had done little to cease his laughing now that he was back on dry land, so to speak, and any other time, Orla might have been oddly giddy at the sound. Now, however, she glared up at him as he stood, pushing the water-black hair from his face before reaching down for her. She batted one hand away with a cantankerous slap, only to be caught by the other and coaxed onto her feet.

"Take off your coat," he instructed with a laugh.

She would have done so, and gladly, had he not still held her hand. His skin was warm against hers and her own, much smaller fingers, curled into his on their own accord, nestling into the warmth. He stood so close now, his dark shirt clinging wetly to his chest, rising and falling rapidly as he caught his breath. She was eye level with his heart; it would be a small thing to step into it, and, looking up at him now, Orla found herself inexplicably unopposed to the prospect. Her thoughts scattered suddenly, leaving her almost dizzy, when a light pressure crossed over the back of her knuckles. If Bard noticed that he was running his thumb along her hand, he did not show it as he grinned down at her, looking remarkably like a younger man she had never had the privilege to know. And Orla, likewise, smiled up at him because of it, all hard feelings washed away and left behind in the water.

It was a funny thing, the desire welling up in her chest in that moment – for it was something she had not hoped to feel again. Wherever it came from, Orla settled into it like it was home and pressed herself up from her toes until her lips grazed his jaw. Stubble scratched against her lips and she responded in kind, her mouth sliding higher to find a soft patch of skin at the bend of Bard's jaw. The hand that held hers tightened, squeezing her fingers, and suddenly wary of the line she had perhaps crossed a second time, Orla began to pull away.

She did not get far.

Bard's face turned to hers, his rough cheek ghosting against her own, tickling, goading her into stillness. Her skin had to be cold against him, she could yet feel the prick of the air, but Bard was undeterred. He was gentle for a man who had been subject to such a hard life, but his lips bore that familiar roughness as they grazed over her cheek and down, down farther to her mouth. In her chest, Orla's breath lodged like a lead weight, only to swell suddenly to bursting when Bard's lips came to rest against hers. Testing, tasting, he slid his mouth, closed, over hers – a mouth that was wider, fuller, and more scarred than his. Kissing him was like sipping tea that was too hot, leaving her desperate for a deep, long drink. For a moment, in her mind, Orla recalled a different mouth, one fervent and young; Bard trod carefully…differently, foreignly.

Her mouth parted with a sigh and unable to help herself, Orla leaned in just slightly, curious to be closer. Who deepened the kiss, neither could have told, for the moment Orla felt the faint brush of tongue at the parting of her lips, she caved into him, her body bending, seeking out the warmth that was offered. Bard pulled her to him with a groan so quiet, so low, Orla felt it within her chest. Strong arms, no weaker for years spent lifting pens, folded at her back and hitched her closer while one hand slipped gently up the curve of her waist and between her shoulder blades to rest finally at the nape of her neck.

Unthinking, her lips parted to better explore his, catching the bottom one gently, only to release it. The urge to taste him was a torment that struck her suddenly like a slap to the face.

She could not. No matter the desire. No matter the will or want.

Sudden humiliation colored her cheeks as she ripped back, one hand flying up to shield her mouth from prying eyes and searching lips. How could she have forgotten? The shame of her injury burned her from inside out, until it hurt to look at the man who held her. He looked dazed, as though he had plunged back into that frigid water, so very unlike his usual self. Understanding dawned on him as his eyes searched her face for a sign of what had gone wrong, his gaze coming to land on the delicate fingers splayed over her lips.

"No," Bard began, reaching for the hand that covered her mouth, "Do not."

Staunchly, Orla refused to surrender to Bard as he gently pried at her fingers. Her eyes burned and she shut them tight, unwilling to look at the bowman any longer. She heard him say her name again, felt the strength in his grip, but she dared not watch for that cursed, awful _pity_ to take root.

"Stop this," she felt his words against the backs of her fingers, his mouth pressed there as he murmured, "You are no less for what you lack."

With a shudder, Orla twisted in his arms, ducking her face from his to press instead against his shoulder. The sorrow began to retreat, squeezed out of her as Bard hauled her closer. It felt too safe, too comfortable, to be held by him. It was altogether alien and it left her scalded. Her teeth grit as she fought against the tears welling in her eyes. Not once in over a decade had she thought to be so thoroughly shamed. She felt stripped bare against him and as her quaking intensified, Bard pressed her closer.

The hand clenched at the base of her skull held her not in an attempt at youthful, well-meaning comfort, but with practiced assurance, unwavering in the wake of her fears. She was glad to brace against him, just as she had in the tomb of a lover past, as she had the night Azog had cut her tongue from her. She let Bard hold her until the chill grew too much to bear and her hands had gone numb, twined in the wet cloth of his shirt.

"Orla," spoke Bard softly, pulling himself away just enough to peer questioningly down at her.

Wiping away the blistering, bare-all tears with a numb hand, Orla shook her head. Bard fell quiet, his worry well-hidden in the shadowy hazel of his eyes.

 _I am fine_. With a determined nod another pull of her hand over her eyes, the Beorning made a promise. _I will be fine._

Bard hesitated only a moment, his eyes watching hers, before he drew back to his full height. His arms around her waist loosened but remained in place, as though turning her aloose might somehow prove to her that her fears were well-founded. For one heartbeat and then another, they both waited.

 _Bard_ …the storm of thoughts in Orla's mind slowly began to die down as one large hand slid up her arm and then to her neck and finally came to rest at the curve of one damp cheek. It was nearly more than she could bear, not to turn her face into Bard's palm, to look instead up to meet his eyes.

The Bowman's lips parted, the serious set of them easing as voice was put to thought and he said, "You are every bit the woman you have always been, Orla."

Was that true? For a moment, gazing up at the man who held her, Orla could almost believe it. How far they had come! From a vengeful, heart-sick fool and a water-logged bargeman to this…whatever it was.

Yes, Orla could almost believe it, confronted with enough proof.

The note of a sigh was all that escaped her, just that and a hell-bent sniffle, as she brought her hands to fist in the fabric at Bard's chest. He needed little coaxing and she, likewise, did not require the sharp eyes of her kin to spot the blooming smile that broke over his lips as she beckoned him down.

That kiss, there above the waters of the Long Lake, in the receding shadow of Erebor, was a promise unspoken of the healing that was to come.

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 **Finally, am I right? Or did I imagine the collective sighs of relief I just heard? Seriously though, I hope ya'll enjoyed it. We should be progressing in slightly more risque territory now that the healing process is coming more or less to its peak. Fair warning if you're not braced for that.**

 **I initially had planned for Tom Bombadil in all his mystical, possibly godlike glory to heal Orla's tongue. But then I decided that was A) a cop-out and B) sent the entirely wrong message. So, here's to looking past differences!**


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